Patrice Bergeron To Make Season Debut For Bruins In Home Opener Against Devils
BOSTON (CBS) -- The Bruins played the first three games of the season without Patrice Bergeron. They will get their star centerman back on Thursday night in their home opener against the New Jersey Devils, head coach Claude Julien announced.
Bergeron missed the Bruins' season-opening road trip with a lower-body injury, but resumed skating over the weekend and re-joined the team at Wednesday's practice. He does not expect the injury to be something that lingers over the course of the season. Defenseman Adam McQuaid also returned to practice this week as he recovers from an upper-body injury, but has not yet been added to Thursday's active roster.
Based on the lines at Thursday's morning skate, Bergeron will take over at center between Brad Marchand and David Pastrnak, while David Backes will move to David Krejci's right wing. Julien added that forward Austin Czarnik will be assigned to Providence to make room for Bergeron's return, but there is a "good chance" that Czarnik will be back in Boston at some point in the 2016-17 season.
In other Bruins roster news, Tuukka Rask was the first goalie off the ice at Thursday's practice and is expected to make the start against New Jersey. On the defense, Torey Krug has mostly been skating with Joe Morrow at this week's practices, while rookie Rob O'Gara played on the fourth pairing with McQuaid.
The Bruins tweeted that forwards Ryan Spooner, Danton Heinen, and Tim Schaller have all rotated through the left wing spots on the Krejci and Dominic Moore lines, leaving one of them in danger of becoming a healthy scratch for Thursday night. But the first and third lines of Marchand-Bergeron-Pastrnak and Matt Beleskey-Riley Nash-Jimmy Hayes appear to be set.
