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Bruins set lineup for Maple Leafs preseason tilt

 09.16.09 at 11:47 am ET
By Joe Haggerty

Blake Wheeler leads a Boston Bruins traveling party for a Wednesday night preseason game against the Toronto Maple Leafs following up on Tuesday night’s 2-1 win over the New York Rangers at Madison Square Garden. Wheeler, Byron Bitz, Brad Marchand, Jamie Arniel and Vladimir Sobotka will play among the forward group for the second straight game, and both Matt Hunwick and Adam McQuaid will play for the second straight day.

The B’s players getting their first taste of preseason action include: Steve Begin, Patrice Bergeron, Drew Larman, Guillaume Lefebvre, Jeff LoVecchio, Michael Ryder and Shawn Thornton at forward, and Derek Morris, Mark Stuart, Dennis Wideman and Any Wozniewski on defense. Dany Sabourin is expected to get the call between the pipes for the Bruins, and will play the whole game as Tuukka Rask did Tuesday night against the Rangers.

“I think we saw a lot of good things from the younger players (against the Rangers),” said B’s coach Claude Julien. “Of course Max Sauve had the game-winning goal, but more than that probably surpassed what we expected from him and played well. Tuukka played well between the pipes, and Brad Marchand played well. Zach Hamill made some plays and he continued what he started at the rookie camps.

“You could see the Penners and the Bodnarchuks, you could see they have a year of pro under their belts and they were able to handle the pressure of the forecheck a lot better.”

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  • shane

    haggs, what do you think the lines will be this year without kessel? Were losing 36 goals but i think the Bergeron/Sturm combo will combine to make up for alot of those 36. I think the lines should be something like this when the team is fully healthy.
    Savard-Lucic-Recchi
    Krejci-Ryder-Wheeler
    Bergeron-Kobasew-Sturm
    Begin-Bitz-Thornton

    Those are 4 extremely deep lines, and the 4th line is perfect to get in teh corners and bang around. Bergeron and Sturm have a good connection with each other, and leaving krejci,wheeler, and ryder together will be the same as last year when all three were clicking. The only question i have is recchi. He will prob score 20-25 goals, but i dont see anywhere else he fits unless its with the 1st line.

  • http://bigbadblog.weei.com Joe Haggerty

    The thought process is that improvement from all five of Bergeron/Sturm/Wheeler/Krejci/Lucic will off-set the potential loss of Kessel, but we’ll see. None of them have the pure goal-scoring skills that Kessel does, even if he still has plenty of pimples in his game as a 21-year-old kid.

    Your lines are solid, but I see Wheeler potentially skating at right wing with Lucic and Savard. He would a logicial replacement for Kessel if/when he moves on.

    I see the most likely combos as

    Lucic Savard Wheeler
    Sturm Krejci Ryder
    Kobasew Bergeron Recchi
    Bitz Begin Thornton

    I liked the Kobasew/Bergeron/Recchi line in the playoffs, and I could see that one being reunited through the course of a season. Recchi will do most of his damage on the PP as he’s done the last few seasons, but he might have trouble if he were logging heavy first line minutes and PP time on a nightly basis.

    –Haggs

  • shane

    i agree haggs thanks for the insight, but dont you think bergeron and sturm are outstanding together? you watch the games they have great presence of each other on the ice. I heard wheeler bulked up in the offseason and i think he can be a 30 goal scorer. thanks again and 2 weeks from today we can talk about real games!!

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