While there had been some hope that Brandon Carlo might not miss any games, he will miss at least one.
The Bruins defenseman was injured during the third period of Game 3 Thursday night when he took a hard hit from Islanders forward Cal Clutterbuck and hit his head off the glass.
Carlo did not take part in Saturday's morning skate and is out for Saturday night's Game 4 on Long Island. According to reporters on the scene, Carlo was at the rink for morning skate and watched in shorts and a T-shirt.
Coach Bruce Cassidy afterwards that Carlo was on the bike Saturday and is "feeling better." He's still considered "day-to-day," but won't play Saturday night.
Jarred Tinordi will draw into the lineup in Carlo's place. Based on morning skate lines, he will slot in next to Connor Clifton on the third pairing to start, with Jeremy Lauzon moving up a pair and over to the right side next to Mike Reilly. Tinordi played Game 5 of the first round an actually played pretty well in fairly big minutes (19:02 in a game that didn't go to overtime).
Expect to see some in-game fluidity with the pairs, with coach Bruce Cassidy acknowledging as much after morning skate. Reilly and Lauzon have not played together in the regular season or postseason, while Reilly and Clifton played 99 minutes together at five-on-five in the regular season and were very good as a pair, with the Bruins getting 65.7% of shots on goal and outscoring opponents 9-2 when they were on the ice.
So Cassidy will have that as a mix-and-match option, and we could see Reilly with Charlie McAvoy for a couple shifts here and there as well.
Up front, Cassidy will not be making any changes. According to The Athletic's Fluto Shinzawa, Brad Marchand came up limping at the end of morning skate, but Cassidy said afterwards that Marchand was fine.
Unsurprisingly, Tuukka Rask will start in goal. Here is the full expected lineup for the Bruins in Game 4:
Brad Marchand - Patrice Bergeron - David Pastrnak
Taylor Hall - David Krejci - Craig Smith
Nick Ritchie - Charlie Coyle - Jake DeBrusk
Sean Kuraly - Curtis Lazar - Chris Wagner
Matt Grzelcyk - Charlie McAvoy
Mike Reilly - Jeremy Lauzon
Jarred Tinordi - Connor Clifton
Tuukka Rask
On the Islanders' side, coach Barry Trotz told reporters he is inclined to stick with the same 18 skaters. As is usually the case, he didn't announce his starting goalie, but smart money would be on Semyon Varlamov, who was great in Game 3 right up until he got beat on a bad-angle shot by Brad Marchand in overtime.
Here are the expected lines and pairs for New York:
Anthony Beauvillier - Brock Nelson - Josh Bailey
Leo Komarov - Mathew Barzal - Jordan Eberle
Kyle Palmieri - Jean-Gabriel Pageau - Travis Zajac
Matt Martin - Casey Cizikas - Cal Clutterbuck
Adam Pelech - Ryan Pulock
Nick Leddy - Scott Mayfield
Andy Greene - Noah Dobson
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