Bruins to give Johnson first start against Sabres

Wednesday, 10.23.2013 / 1:47 PM

By Joe Yerdon - NHL.com Correspondent / 2013-2014 At the Rink Blog

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BUFFALO -- The Boston Bruins will look to extend their winning streak to three games Wednesday against the Buffalo Sabres (8 p.m. ET, NBCSN, TSN2, RDS2) with a new face in goal.

Veteran Chad Johnson will get the start against the Bruins, and it comes after not seeing any game action in the past 32 days.

"I think we're looking forward to seeing him win his first game. I think it's important for him, it's important for our hockey team,” Bruins coach Claude Julien said. "I think it's important for him to get into some game situations now. It's been a while since he last played. We need to be extremely good in front of him and help him out there."

Johnson hasn't played since Sept. 21, when he shut out the Detroit Red Wings 2-0 in a preseason game. He'll be facing a Sabres team that's struggled offensively with 12 goals in 10 games.

"I think you have to go in and treat every team the same way," Johnson said. "Sometimes teams that usually get a lot of goals and a lot of shots on net, they don't sometimes, right? This team has obviously been struggling but teams don't struggle forever. They're bound to break out and have a good game too, so I'm sure they're looking to rebound and get things going on their side, so we have to be ready for that."

The Sabres will counter with Ryan Miller in goal. They'll also have defenseman Nikita Zadorov, the 16th pick of the 2013 NHL Draft, back in the lineup.

"It's his second game in the League at 18 years old so, matchup-wise he's got size and he's physical," Sabres coach Ron Rolston said. "He had six hits last game and led our team physically. He's a guy that can clear people out front. It'll be another great challenge for him to see where he's at."

The Sabres are 1-8-1 and in need of a win to help turn things around. They hope a game with the rival Bruins will provide them with the spark they need to do that.

"It's going to prove a lot to a lot of guys in this dressing room," co-captain Steve Ott said. "They've got a lot of big bodies over there, a lot of guys that play hard hockey. We need to show that exact same mentality. Strong hits, strong forechecking, all those kinds of aspects of the game that make hockey hard. We need that out of our guys [Wednesday]."

In other roster news, the Sabres put forward Cody McCormick on injured reserve. As for the lineups, they will likely look like this:

SABRES

Thomas Vanek - Cody Hodgson - Steve Ott

Marcus Foligno - Tyler Ennis - Drew Stafford

Zemgus Girgensons - Johan Larsson - Brian Flynn

John Scott - Mikhail Grigorenko - Kevin Porter

Henrik Tallinder - Tyler Myers

Christian Ehrhoff - Mark Pysyk

Nikita Zadorov - Mike Weber

Ryan Miller

Jhonas Enroth

Scratched: Jamie McBain, Rasmus Ristolainen