Projected Bruins lines vs. Penguins: Frederic back, DeBrusk sits as bottom six get shuffled

The Boston Bruins close out their road trip against the Pittsburgh Penguins tonight and Bruce Cassidy is mixing things up with his bottom forwards.

Cassidy will sit Jake DeBrusk, as he said the team needs a “higher compete level” from him. Cassidy talked about the decision not being about individual stats, but that players need to be able to help the team win and play to the Bruins’ standard.

With DeBrusk as a healthy scratch, Charlie Coyle will shift to the right-wing and Sean Kuraly will move up to the center the third line.

Trent Frederic will re-enter the lineup with DeBrusk out. Frederic found himself sidelined since April 6, first due to illness and then unable to get back into the lineup because of how well the fourth line was meshing.

On defense, Connor Clifton will sub in for Steven Kampfer.

Tuukka Rask will start in net with Jaroslav Halak serving as back-up. Cassidy said who will play in net going forward is a “day-to-day” thing. He doesn’t know when Halak will get back in, and that Jeremy Swayman is the team’s next option behind Rask right now.

Here’s how the lineup is projected to look:

Lines:

Brad Marchand – Patrice Bergeron – David Pastrnak

Taylor Hall – David Krejci – Craig Smith

Nick Ritchie – Kuraly – Coyle

Frederic – Curtis Lazar – Chris Wagner

Defensive pairings:

Matt Grzelcyk – Charlie McAvoy

Mike Reilly – Kevan Miller

Jeremy Lauzon – Clifton

Rask gets the start