Preview: Guess who's back? Back again... Bergy's back, tell a friend!

The Boston Bruins will embark on their first game of a 4-game Eastern Conference road trip tonight in Ottawa against one of their Atlantic Divisional enemies, in the Ottawa Senators. This game will start shortly after 7:30 PM EST, and can be followed on NESN/98.5 The Sports Hub for both my Canadian and American followers. Centre Patrice Bergeron will make his highly-anticipated return to the lineup this evening centring the Bruins 1st line alongside fellow linemates, Brad Marchand and David Pastrnak.

In their previous matchup in Ottawa back on Nov 27th, the Bruins defeated the Senators by the final score of 2-1 in what was a rather “low scoring” affair. Defenseman Zdeno Chara broke the 1-1 tie midway through the 3rd period, as he scored the game-winning goal on a “seeing-eye” shot that was an absolute cannon.

To quickly recap Saturday night’s game at TD Garden, the Bruins lost to the Colorado Avalanche by the final score of 4-1. The Avs swept the season series in the process, and also broke the Bruins unbeaten streak in regulation time at home. The friendly confines of TD Garden was a place where the Bruins didn’t endure a single, regulation loss until Saturday night’s affair. The Bruins just found the overall team speed of the Avs too much to handle. Here’s Bruins insider, Joe Haggerty’s tweet of what Bruins head coach, Bruce Cassidy had to say about the loss on Saturday night:

Bruce Cassidy: “I thought we’d be better. But it’s not a switch you can turn on. We talked about lack of urgency the other night and there was definitely some of that in this game”
— Joe Haggerty (@HackswithHaggs) December 8, 2019

Backup goaltender Jaro Halak played poorly in the loss, but has since been a brick wall in his last 7 starts. Halak has amassed a 4-1-2 record during that span. Starting goaltender Tuukka Rask will be back between the pipes tonight vs. Ottawa. The Bruins are currently 8-1-1 in their last 10 games played. They are in 1st place in the Eastern Conference’s Atlantic Division, with an 11-point cushion on the 2nd place, Florida Panthers heading into tonight’s game.

Here's a look at tonight’s projected lineups:

Marchand - Bergeron - Pastrnak
DeBrusk - Krejci - Heinen
Bjork - Coyle - Ritchie
Nordstrom - Kuraly - Wagner

Chara - McAvoy
Krug - Carlo
Moore - Grzelcyk

Rask
Halak

Notes: Par Lindholm, David Backes, and Connor Clifton will all serve as the healthy scratches this evening.

*Article written by Travis Hauer