ECF game 3 preview: Boston Bruins (3) at Tampa Bay Lightning (5)

WHERE: St. Pete Times Forum, Tampa, Florida
WHEN: 8 PM EDT | | TICKETS: Check Availability
MEDIA: Versus, CBC, RDS (cable), 970 WFLA (radio)
OPPONENT COVERAGE: Stanley Cup of Chowder, Something’s Bruin, Days of Y’Orr

Deep breathing aside, we’re back at it tonight with Game 3 of the Eastern Conference Finals. The Bolts return home for tonight’s contest. Streaks are over. The series is tied at 1-1…

We’re back at even. We’re back at 0-0 in what is now a best-of five games series.

One big change is reportedly in store for the Boston Bruins lineup tonight as B’s center Patrice Bergeron will likely be returning from his concussion-caused playoff hiatus. Who he replaces in the lineup if he does indeed play remains to be seen, but it will not by Tyler Seguin. Boston Bruins head coach Claude Julien’s words in favor of Seguin sticking in the lineup:

“You don’t pull a guy like that out of your lineup that’s been very good. Like I said, he’s earned it, he deserves to be in the lineup, and that’s what we want to see. We want to see those kind of things happening.”

But that’s Boston’s story. What about Tampa Bay and the injuries to Pavel Kubina and Dana Tyrell? More on that after the jump

Pavel Kubina’s status was updated before Game 2 in Boston… Well, actually it wasn’t quite updated by head coach Guy Boucher. His update was not a good one, full context of the quote:

“He’s not with us. He’s not even here, so the update is not very good. Every day when there seems to be a little progression, it kind of slips back a bit. So it’s kind of an injury that you never know. You wake up the next day and everything’s great or just keeps on going the same way so it’s very hard to monitor what’s going on with him. But obviously we’re missing him. He’s got size. He’s got some offensive abilities on our second power play; he made a big difference on it. But right now we’ve adapted. Bergeron’s kind of taken the lead on that power play with Purcell. And we had to adapt because he was doing very well for us.

What actually got me was how I read the initial text of the update, and how I’ve seen it used out-of-context by the media. The rest of the quote sort of warrants the media being grim regarding Boucher’s update… But really, am I the only one who sees Boucher’s remark as “he’s not with us, so I can’t tell you exactly how he is progressing, so my update is not very good”?

But really, seeing there have been no status reports on Kubina during morning activities, my belly aching about context and what-not is rather useless, eh? Pavel Kubina remains out with what is most certainly a concussion.

Meanwhile, Damian Cristodero reported via Twitter that Lightning forward Dana Tyrell skated without a no-contact jersey today and has been cleared to play once again. That doesn’t necessarily mean he will play. Expect him to take warm-ups tonight, and only play if coach Boucher makes a last-minute change.

While all games at the St. Pete Times Forum are listed as sell-outs, there are a number of tickets available through brokers (593 as of this writing) still available.