At the Rink: Lightning at Bruins

BOSTON -- Tampa Bay Lightning coach Jon Cooper had a hat trick of bad news to reveal Thursday.

Forward Ondrej Palat will miss 2-3 weeks because of a lower-body injury, defenseman Braydon Coburn will be out 4-6 weeks because of a lower-body injury and forward Cedric Paquette will miss 10-14 days because of an upper-body injury.

The Lightning will face the Boston Bruins at TD Garden on Thursday (7 p.m. ET, NHLN-US, SN360, TVA Sports). Palat is fourth on the Lightning in scoring with 52 points. Paquette has scored 12 goals in addition to providing the Lightning with grit as a bottom-six forward. Coburn, who played four games for the Lightning after he was acquired in a trade with the Philadelphia Flyers on March 2, has averaged 17:01 of ice time since the trade.

To acquire Coburn the Lightning traded first- and third-round picks in the 2015 NHL Draft, plus defenseman Radko Gudas.

This is the third time this season Coburn will miss at least a month because of a lower-body injury, but this most recent injury is unrelated to the previous ones, according to the Tampa Tribune. He missed a month because of an injury sustained opening night, and then was out from Jan. 14 to Feb. 13.

"To be honest this happens to a lot of teams," Cooper said during the Lightning's optional morning skate. "Now to lose three big-minute regulars, that's one thing. But as I said, it's not the end of everybody's season. This isn't something where that's it, turn the lights out, see you next year. These guys will all be back. We've just got to weather this at a tough time of the year when teams are digging their heels in to play and the other teams are making a push to make the [Stanley Cup] Playoffs or fighting for position. ... But like I said, look at the positive side. They get to rest their bodies and come back for the final push. Like I said before, this is the time for other guys to step up and take their shot."

Forward J.T. Brown, who missed the past three games, is scheduled to return to the Lightning lineup. The Lightning also recalled forward Mike Angelidis from the Syracuse Crunch of the American Hockey League on an emergency basis. Rookie Jonathan Drouin will get a chance to fill in for Palat on a line with Tyler Johnson and Nikita Kucherov.

There will be plenty of opportunities for players to take bigger roles for the Lightning at the biggest time of the season.

"There's nothing we can about it now," Lightning captain Steven Stamkos said. "We have to find a way. The teams that we're going to be playing down the stretch are definitely not going to be feeling sorry for us because we lost some pretty good players. The good news is, for now, everyone looks like they're going to be back hopefully in time for the playoffs. So that's what we want and that's what we brought a guy like [Coburn] in for is obviously for that playoff push. So hopefully he's back in time and the other guys hopefully get back soon. But this gives other guys an opportunity and they have to step up."

The Lightning have won four in a row but they've lost their last nine games against the Bruins; they haven't won in Boston since March 25, 2010. The Bruins have fared almost as well as the Lightning recently, with three wins in a row and at least one point in six straight (5-0-1).

They've gotten a major spark from center Ryan Spooner, who has three goals and four assists during a six-game scoring streak. Spooner has fit in well as David Krejci's replacement between wings Milan Lucic and David Pastrnak.

"I think he's brought that element of speed that we always saw in Ryan," Bruins coach Claude Julien said. "His playmaking ability seems to be even better. He seems to be gaining confidence all the time. But I think the biggest thing with Ryan is his play at this level, he seems to have a lot more confidence where he was hesitant at times in certain areas."

Here are the projected lineups:

LIGHTNING

Alex Killorn - Steven Stamkos - Ryan Callahan

Jonathan Drouin - Tyler Johnson - Nikita Kucherov

Brenden Morrow - Valtteri Filppula - J.T. Brown

Mike Angelidis - Brian Boyle - Vladislav Namestnikov

Anton Stralman - Victor Hedman

Nikita Nesterov - Jason Garrison

Andrej Sustr - Mark Barberio

Ben Bishop

Andrei Vasilevskiy

Scratched: None

Injured: Matthew Carle (abdomen), Ondrej Palat (lower body), Braydon Coburn (lower body), Cedric Paquette (upper body)

BRUINS

Brad Marchand - Patrice Bergeron - Reilly Smith

Milan Lucic - Ryan Spooner - David Pastrnak

Chris Kelly - Carl Soderberg - Loui Eriksson

Daniel Paille - Gregory Campbell - Maxime Talbot

Zdeno Chara - Dougie Hamilton

Matt Bartkowski - Dennis Seidenberg

Torey Krug - Adam McQuaid

Tuukka Rask

Niklas Svedberg

Scratched: Brian Ferlin

Injured: Brett Connolly (finger), David Krejci (knee), Kevan Miller (shoulder)

Status report: The Lightning expect Carle to return to the lineup this weekend. ... Krejci started skating on his own this week. He's been out three weeks; the original projection for his return was 4-6 weeks.

Who's hot: Johnson has three goals and six assists during a seven-game scoring streak. ... Eriksson has three goals in his past four games, and has a point in each of those games.