2009 Stanley Cup Playoffs Blog - Conference Quarter-finals

MONTREAL - Suspended Boston Bruins battering ram Milan Lucic was not necessarily disappointed in Colin Campbell's decision to suspend him for Game 3 against the Montreal Canadiens on Monday night.

His disappointment lied elsewhere.

"I'm a little disappointed in myself," Lucic said Monday in his first comments since the decision was handed down Sunday evening, "because our team's done a really good job of being disciplined."

Lucic, Bruins coach Claude Julien and general manager Peter Chiarelli all said they would have to live with Campbell's decision, even if they don't necessarily agree with it, and they each made a point of noting how difficult Campbell's job can be.

But many people have put forth the notion that Campbell had to suspend Lucic if only to tell the 15 other playoff teams that "reckless" shots to the head will not be tolerated by the NHL.

When asked if he thought it was fair to have one of his players made an example of, Chiarelli didn't bite.

"That question's not fair," he said with a grin. "I think I'm going to decline comment on that one."

Consider that a "no comment" that tells a 1,000 words.

On the other side of the coin was Habs head coach and GM Bob Gainey, who kept all pertinent information about Game 3 locked tightly in his vault.

When asked if it will be Carey Price or Jaroslav Halak in goal for Game 3, Gainey's answer was, "Can't tell you."

How about his thoughts on the Lucic suspension?

"No comment."

Will his choice of goalie be a game-time decision?

"Yup."

The Canadiens skated Monday morning with all the forwards wearing red jerseys, giving no indication of tonight's line combinations. None of the drills provided any more hints as to who would be playing with whom.

So there's no update on whether or not Tomas Plekanec will be back in uniform after sitting out Game 2, if Gainey will decide to reunite the line of Saku Koivu between Alex Kovalev and Alex Tanguay that ended the season on a tear but hasn't played a single game of this series together, or if Sergei Kostitsyn will play another game with his brother Andrei despite taking a costly, useless hooking penalty in Game 2 that allowed the Bruins to open the scoring.

It was playoff gamesmanship at its finest; though it's entirely possible Gainey simply didn't know what he would do. He watched Monday's morning skate from high above the Bell Centre ice in the press box alongside assistant coach Don Lever, perhaps to get a better perspective on his players before making a final decision for Game 3.

Gainey was no more revealing about his lineup than he was about his choice of goaltender, saying changes were "possible" and recommending that people "watch the warm-up" to find out more about his plans.

The Bruins, on the other hand, really have no reason to cling to secrecy to try to get an edge because they are in perfect control of the series heading into Game 3.

Byron Bitz will dress for his first career playoff game and Blake Wheeler will be sliding up from the fourth line to grab Lucic's spot on the second line with David Krejci and Michael Ryder, which is where Wheeler's played for a solid chunk of the season and where he scored most of 21 goals this season.

Wheeler has also played with Krejci on the penalty kill, though they haven't been needed very often in this series.

"As long as the end result is same as the first two games, that's all that matters," said Wheeler of the promotion. "I don't think anybody's worried about the first, second, third or fourth line, because our mentality all year has been that we don't have a fourth line."

That much is true, seeing as Lucic has only played about five minutes more than Wheeler over the two games of the series, and Julien's number one philosophy is to roll all four lines so that shouldn't change despite the absence of Lucic.

As far as the cloak and dagger stuff regarding who will play in nets going on in the opposing camp, Julien said it doesn't bother him one bit.

"With all due respect," he said, "that's not the type of thing that intimidates us in our game preparation."

On the injury front, Bruins defenceman Andrew Ference skated for the first time since suffering an undisclosed injury April 4 and said he felt good, though he provided no further insight as to the nature of his injury other than to say it wasn't a concussion or anything else related to his head.

"I don't think there's any imminent return as far as the next couple of games," Ference said. "It's definitely progress."

Perhaps more importantly in terms of the outcome of this series, Habs defenceman Andrei Markov skated again Monday morning, but he didn't take part in the game day skate with his teammates. He was joined by centre Robert Lang, out since Feb. 1 with a severed Achilles tendon, and Lang was in full equipment Monday as opposed to when he skated Sunday in a track suit. That may be progress, or it may not, but he was skating pretty hard.

Gainey has said that Markov won't play until he skates with his teammates because that is the natural progression of coming back from an injury, but Francis Bouillon was thrown into Game 2 without first practising with the team. Of course, Bouillon didn't make it out of the first period of that game, so maybe that will serve as a warning to Gainey regarding Markov.

But the Canadiens record is 0-5-1 since Markov's injury, and it's 6-17-2 since the lockout when Markov hasn't played. That's not a tremendous winning percentage to be going into a must-win game with, so perhaps both Gainey and Markov have another little trick up their sleeves for Game 3.