The NHL playoff matchups are officially set across the board, but the Bruins knew their first round date ahead of their final regular season game, so what did they do?
Bench essentially their entire team in order to prevent injury. And let us tell you… the team’s roster consisted of a bunch of players you might not have heard of before.
Boston, who took on the Caps (who they will ironically be playing in the first round) to close out their season, benched 16 starters with Patrice Bergeron, Brad Marchand and David Pastrnak leading the list. Here’s a look at the rest:
As for the roster…
Despite Washington still dressing Alex Ovechkin, Nicklas Backstrom and Zdeno Chara, the Bruins actually held their own in a 2-1 loss. In fact, Michael Raffl scored with just three seconds left in the third period to clinch the win for the Caps.
This series kicks off on Saturday and wow, is it going to be a good one. Expect Boston to be well-rested for game one.
(H/T Conor Ryan)
