Kings at Bruins preview

KINGS (23-27-4) at BRUINS (29-17-8)
1 p.m. ET; NESN, FS-W, NHL.TV

The Kings, who extended their winning streak to three games with a 3-2 shootout win at the Philadelphia Flyers on Thursday, last won four straight Dec. 18-27.
The Bruins will look to extend their point streak to six games after their 4-3 shootout loss at the New York Rangers on Wednesday made them 2-0-3 in their past five games.

Players to watch

Kings forward Anze Kopitar has nine points (three goals, six assists) in his past six games.
Bruins forward Patrice Bergeron has eight points (five goals, three assists) in his past seven games.

They said it

"I think we smell it a little more now that we did this, but we can't take our foot off the gas pedal. We know we need to keep winning hockey games. We have like 28 games left, we basically got to win 20-something of those. We're ready for that challenge and we're excited about the challenge and we're going to do everything we can to keep this rolling. -- Kings defenseman Drew Doughty on being back in the Stanley Cup Playoffs hunt
"So I don't know if they're going to score as much right away simply because he's not [Pastrnak]. But we hope Krejci with [Pastrnak] generates more, so we're not going to lose [Pastrnak's] offense, we don't feel anyways, it's just going to come from a different line." -- Bruins coach Bruce Cassidy on switching David Pastrnak to David Krejci's line and putting Danton Heinen with Brad Marchand and Patrice Bergeron

Kings projected lineup

Alex Iafallo -- Anze Kopitar -- Dustin Brown
Brendan Leipsic -- Michael Amadio -- Tyler Toffoli
Carl Hagelin -- Adrian Kempe -- Ilya Kovalchuk
Kyle Clifford -- Nate Thompson -- Austin Wagner
Derek Forbort -- Drew Doughty
Alec Martinez -- Sean Walker
Oscar Fantenberg -- Dion Phaneuf
Jonathan Quick
Jack Campbell
Scratched: Paul LaDue
Injured: Trevor Lewis (lower body), Jeff Carter (lower body), Jonny Brodzinski (upper body)

Bruins projected lineup

Brad Marchand -- Patrice Bergeron -- Danton Heinen
Peter Cehlarik -- David Krejci -- David Pastrnak
Jake DeBrusk -- Sean Kuraly -- David Backes
Joakim Nordstrom -- Noel Acciari -- Chris Wagner
Zdeno Chara -- Charlie McAvoy
Torey Krug -- Kevan Miller
John Moore -- Brandon Carlo
Tuukka Rask
Jaroslav Halak
Scratched:Trent Frederic, Steven Kampfer
Injured:Matt Grzelcyk (lower body)

Status report

Lewis, who has missed 37 games, will be a game-day decision. … Phaneuf returns and replaces LaDue. … Backes returns to replace Frederic, and Moore replaces Grzelcyk.

Stat pack

Brown is two points from 600 for his NHL career. … Kempe has scored in three straight games and has five points (four goals, one assist) in that span. … Marchand has 14 points (three goals, 11 assists) in his past nine games.