Sheldon Keefe makes some surprising line changes ahead of Game 1
Michael Bunting and Ondrej Kase returned to practice in regular sweaters this morning after both having been sidelined with injuries. Kase has been out since March 19th with a concussion and Bunting missed the last few games with an undisclosed but likely lower body injury. Both players were skating in their regular jerseys indicating that both could be returning to the lineup for Game 1.
However, after the meeting at the beginning of practice, Keefe appeared to have shuffled up his lines and has made some significant changes:
Kerfoot-Matthews-Marner
Mikheyev-Tavares-Kase
Engvall-Kampf-Nylander
Clifford-Blackwell-Simmonds
These lines indicate that Bunting is still not close enough to 100 percent to play in Game 1. This comes as a bit of a shock given that he took to the ice in his regular blue jersey. Spezza is also skating as an extra meaning he will be a scratch in Game 1 as well. Not surprising as Keefe has elected to go with a heavier and more physical fourth line against a Tampa team that has a heavy bottom six itself.
Regardless of how Game 1 goes, expect Bunting to be back in the lineup for Game 2 Wednesday night given the fact he is in a regular jersey today. Unless of course he suffered some sort of a setback, as he did leave practice a tad early.
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