After sweeping their three games in California against the San Jose Sharks, Anaheim Ducks, and Los Angeles Kings, the Boston Bruins will complete their four-game road trip on Tuesday night against the Dallas Stars at American Airlines Arena with a complete sweep of their trip.
Boston was shorthanded on Saturday in Los Angeles, with Pavel Zacha missing the game with an upper-body injury sustained on Friday night in Anaheim and Nikita Zadorov being a healthy scratch. The Black and Gold were able to still dig deep on the backend of a back-to-back to pick up a 4-1 win.
After a couple of days off in Texas and a practice on Monday that rolled out the same lines as in Los Angeles, the Black and Gold had some different looks on Tuesday morning for their game-day skate. After the skate, head coach Marco Sturm gave some positive lineup news against the talented Stars.
Bruins get key players back in lineup against Dallas
So far, the trip has exceeded expectations for the Bruins, with six out of a possible six points in California. They can make it a wonderful trip with points of any kind against the Stars on Tuesday night. If they are going to get any points in the standings, they will do it with a familiar lineup.
According to Adam Pellerin of NESN, Sturm said that Zacha will be back in the lineup after missing the Kings game, as will Zadorov. Unsurprisingly, Jeremy Swayman will get the start between the pipes, and according to Belle Fraser of BostonBruins.com Morning skate lineup: it appears that Sturm is moving JJ Peterka to the top line with Zacha and David Pastrnak and dropping Morgan Geekie to the second line with Fraser Miinten and Marat Khusnutdinov. With Zacha and Zadorov back in, Jonathan Aspirot and Sean Kuraly will be out.
You have to admit that the Bruins are one of the bigger, if not the biggest, surprises so far in the NHL in 2026-27. They enter the game 7-2-0, in first place in the Atlantic Division and on a five-game winning streak. They went 4-2-0 without Charlie McAvoy who sat out the first six games suspended.
It's a good sign that Zacha is back in the lineup after suffering a setback against the Ducks in the third period on Friday night, and we'll see how Zadorov responds to being scratched and upset about it. Tuesday night is setting up as an interesting night in Dallas.
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