Game 51

Buffalo Sabres (13-30-7) vs. Boston Bruins (28-14-6)

Puck Drop: 7:00 PM EST | TD Garden | Boston, MA

TV: MSG

Radio: WGR 550

SB Nation Bruins Blog: Stanley Cup of Chowder

Know Your Opponent

New York Rangers

Record: (28-18-6) | 62PTS

Division Ranking: 4th in East Division

PP: 15th (20.7%)

PK: 2nd (86.1%)

What to Watch

1. Luukkonen Starts

Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen will start his third career game and second against the Bruins tonight. He played very well against the Rangers on Tuesday in a 3-1 loss and was strong in his NHL debut against the Bruins last week.

The big Finnish goaltender comes into this game with a .914 save percentage in his first two starts.

2. Mixing the Lines

It appears Don Granato is going to mix the lines a little for the first time in a while. Tage Thompson was removed from the Casey Mittelstadt line in practice and was replaced by Arttu Ruotsalainen. Thompson was demoted to the fourth line with Tobias Rieder and Riley Sheahan.

Drake Caggiula moved up to the line with Dylan Cozens and Anders Bjork to take the spot of Ruotsalainen.

Projected Lineup

Buffalo Sabres

Forwards

Jeff Skinner – Sam Reinhart – Victor Olofsson

Rasmus Asplund – Casey Mittelstadt – Arttu Ruotsalainen

Anders Bjork – Dylan Cozens – Drake Caggiula

Tobias Rieder – Riley Sheahan – Tage Thompson

Defense

Rasmus Dahlin – Henri Jokiharju

Mattias Samuelsson – Rasmus Ristolainen

Jacob Bryson – Will Borgen

Starting Goaltender: Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen

Boston Bruins

Forwards

Brad Marchand – Patrice Bergeron – David Pastrnak

Taylor Hall – David Krejci – Craig Smith

Trent Frederic – Sean Kuraly – Charlie Coyle

Nick Ritchie – Curtis Lazar – Chris Wagner

Defense

Matt Grzelcyk – Charlie McAvoy

Mike Rielly – Steve Kampfer

Jeremy Lauzon – Connor Clifton

Starting Goaltender: Tuukka Rask