Stafford_Bergeron

BRUINS (44-20-9) AT DEVILS (27-38-9)
7 p.m. ET; SN360, SNE, SNO, SNP, MSG, NESN, NHL.TV

The Bruins, who have won two straight and are 15-3-1 in their past 19 games, are four points ahead of the Toronto Maple Leafs with a game in hand.
Goalie Tuukka Rask will start; he's 17-2-3 with a 2.13 goals-against average, .922 save percentage and four shutouts in his past 23 games (21 decisions).
Center Pavel Zacha will return to the Devils lineup after missing 16 games with an upper-body injury. New Jersey, 2-8-1 in its past 11 games, has been eliminated from contention for the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

Players to watch

Bruins center Patrice Bergeron has 12 points (seven goals, five assists) in his past 11 games.
Devils forward Kenny Agostino has six points (three goals, three assists) in his past six games.
They said it
"Finishing ahead of Toronto (in the Atlantic Division) will allow us to get home ice advantage. Listen, we take it one game at a time until we're in, and once we're in, we'll worry about what's next. We're not catching [the] Tampa Bay [Lightning], we know that, so we'd like to keep our place ahead of Toronto." -- Bruins coach Bruce Cassidy
"We need to play the game extremely hard in the competitive areas and we need to execute; we have to get into the areas where you can score because we haven't done that enough. You can't have mental lapses against a team like Boston because they have so much depth and firepower." -- Devils coach John Hynes

Bruins projected lineup
Devils projected lineup
Status report

Miller, Grzelcyk and Johansson each skated Thursday; each is expected to practice with the Bruins on Friday. … Jacobs was recalled from Binghamton of the American Hockey League and will make his NHL debut.

Stat pack

Marchand has 16 points (seven goals, nine assists) in his past 11 games. ... Schneider is 5-4-1 with a 2.09 GAA, .934 save percentage and one shutout in his past 10 games (nine starts).