Going East

For the rest of the season, the Bruins play only teams from the Eastern Conference, having wrapped up their schedule against the West on Saturday against Detroit.

"You can do a lot of damage both ways as far as climbing up in the standings and creeping up to some other teams, and at the same time pushing at the teams chasing from behind," said Claude Julien. "All you've got to do is win hockey games. That's what we should be focusing on -- winning those games and letting things fall where they may."

* Tim Thomas will start tonight for the fifth straight game. He'll be opposed by Ryan Miller.

* Marc Savard, who missed practice yesterday because of flu-like symptoms, participated in the morning skate and will play tonight.

* Bobby Allen and Glen Murray also skated this morning but will not play tonight.

* Milan Lucic watched most of last night's Beanpot game between Boston University and Boston College with Phil Kessel and Chuck Kobasew at TD Banknorth Garden. They were joined by BC's Brock Bradford, the Bruins prospect who is out with a broken arm. Lucic was surprised by the level of chippiness and rough stuff in the college game.

* Lucic and Kobasew each bring four-game scoring streaks into tonight's match.

* If the lineup remains the same as it was last game, Petteri Nokelainen will be the healthy scratch.

Tonight's expected lineup:

Sturm-Savard-Kessel
Lucic-Metropolit-Kobasew
Axelsson-Krejci-Schaefer
Reich-Sobotka-Thornton

Chara-Wideman
Stuart-Ward
Ference-Hnidy

Thomas