NHL Notebook: What will Bruins opening night lineup be against Predators?

Discussing the projected opening-night lineup never gets old. It’s also pretty exciting for Bruins fans that there’s this much competition in camp. In fact, it’s never been like this since I’ve covered the team.

General manager Don Sweeney was criticized when he first took over the job in 2015 and many questioned his draft selections. At this point, he deserves credit for building the depth in the organization.

Even though every coach wants consistency in lineup, it’s inevitable the roster will change throughout the season due to injuries and other circumstances. Now that the preseason is over, Sweeney & Co. still has some decisions to make.

While the top two lines, and the fourth line, appear to be set, the third unit remains in question.

Looking back, here’s the projected lineup I posted prior to training camp.

Forwards

Brad Marchand-Patrice Bergeron-Anders Bjork/Danton Heinen

Frank Vatrano-David Krejci-David Pastrnak

Matt Beleskey-David Backes-Jakob Forsbacka-Karlsson

Tim Schaller-Riley Nash-Noel Acciari

Defense

Zdeno Chara- Brandon Carlo

Torey Krug- Charlie McAvoy

Kevan Miller- Adam McQuaid

Goalies

Tuukka Rask

Anton Khudobin

Here’s what it will likely look like for the season-opener against the Nashville Predators on Thursday at TD Garden.

Forwards

Marchand-Bergeron-Bjork

DeBrusk-Krejci-Pastrnak

Beleskey-Spooner-Backes

Schaller-Nash-Acciari

Defense

Chara-Carlo

Postma-McQuaid

Miller-McAvoy

Goalies

Rask

Khudobin

It’s no secret that the Bruins are trying to figure out ways to preserve Zdeno Chara’s 40-year-old energy during the season. At this point, Cassidy has no plans to set a limit on Chara’s minutes on ice per game, but the team will keep an eye on it all year long. Basically, the Bruins want to make sure the captain is running at full capacity if the team reaches the playoffs. There are simple ways of achieving that goal and it starts in training camp.

When asked how many preseason games he wanted to play in order to prepare for the regular season, Chara said three to four. He’s been under the weather for the past week, so he will not play in the preseason finale in Chicago.

“Unless he came kicking and screaming that he wanted to play that game to get ready, which I don’t think he needs it,” Cassidy said. “He’s been around a long time and he’ll get his work in practice.”

Cassidy admitted since Chara is the only healthy left-shot defenseman in the lineup right now, the team didn’t want to risk a freak injury in a preseason game.

This week the NHL’s board of governors approved a change to the coach’s offside challenge. A team will be assessed a two-minute minor penalty for an unsuccessful challenge to an alleged offside infraction that lead to a goal. In the past, the team would lose its timeout after an unsuccessful offside challenge. Now, a team does not have to possess its timeout in order to issue a challenge.

“I prefer a game with flow,” Cassidy said. “The more challenges there are the more it slows the game down and there’s more pressure on me to get it right, so I’m not a huge fan of all these different challenges.

“If they’re going to punish you for challenging a play and getting it wrong, hopefully they give you an appropriate amount of time so you at least get an accurate read from your video guys. No coach in the world that sees it in live time, 99 times out of a 100 it’s so close you don’t know, and you need information from the people you’ve designated to give you that information.”

Officials would look at the bench after every goal to see if the opposition wanted to challenge it, which normally would be 25-30 seconds, but there’s no set amount of time.

“As a coach, you have to be fairly certain now because you’d hate to give up a goal killing a penalty. It could be a big momentum swing. I’m assuming that’s why they put it in there; they want less challenges.”

This edition of Drill of the Week focuses on edge work, stick handling and shooting. This can be done on a full or half sheet. In fact, I ran this with our peewee team this week and used only the neutral zone. You line up three bumpers on each side and have the players straddle the bumpers while stick handling on one side and then switch to the other side before shooting on net. Or, you can have the players skate in and out of the bumpers before taking a shot. You can get creative and add different elements if you want. Here’s the video:


Untitled from Boston Sports Journal on Vimeo.