Boston Bruins Making Lineup Changes For Game 6

The Boston Bruins will be making some lineup changes headed into Game 6 against the Florida Panthers at FLA Live Arena on Friday night.

The big possibility is second line center David Krejci as a game time decision that will take warmups on Friday night ahead of the potential closeout game, but the Bruins will also be changing things up on the back end as well. Connor Clifton will draw back into the B’s lineup after serving as a healthy scratch for the last two games and Matt Grzelcyk will cycle back out of the B’s back end lineup after dressing for the last three games while posting zero points, five shots on net and an even plus/minus rating while logging just an average of 12:52 of ice time per game.

The 5-foot-9. 170-pound Grzelcyk certainly gave the Bruins some puck-moving and mobility along their blue line against a fast, aggressive attack, but the small-sized defenseman has his share of challenges while forced into physical battles in the defensive zone. Krejci hasn’t played since the first two games of the series either, and was a minus-3 with a single assist in the two games while averaging over 20 minutes of ice time.

Regardless of whether Krejci plays or not, expect the Boston Bruins to go back to more familiar line combinations after some new combinations perhaps contributed to Boston’s slow start in Game 5’s OT loss on Wednesday night.

“The lines now are going to go back to somewhat we believe is where people’s comfort zones are with who they have played with the most,” said Boston Bruins head coach Jim Montgomery. “Last game with Bergeron coming back, that changed what the lines looked like to start the game, but we quickly went back with things that were familiar. We thought the second and third period, because the lines were familiar, we had more moving play toward their end.”

🎥 Coach Montgomery on the #NHLBruins lineup for Game 6: "The lines now are going to go back to somewhat we believe is where people’s comfort zones are with who they have played with the most." pic.twitter.com/vvpOTnrTHj

— Boston Bruins (@NHLBruins) April 28, 2023

Linus Ullmark will again get the start for Friday night’s Game 6 after Boston Bruins head coach Jim Montgomery left the door open for Jeremy Swayman to possibly play while speaking about it on Thursday afternoon.