Music: {allcanada} Flames' Gaudreau back in Boston to face Bruins

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BOSTON -- Calgary Flames forward Johnny Gaudreau's first NHL road trip through the places where he made his mark on his path to becoming a professional hockey player will continue when the Flames face the Boston Bruins on Thursday at TD Garden.

Gaudreau starred for three seasons with Boston College. His teams won the Beanpot three times and the Hockey East championship once on the Bruins home ice. Gaudreau won the Hobey Baker Award in 2014.

"Yeah, it definitely brought back some old memories from winning Beanpots here and the Hockey East championship," Gaudreau said after the Flames morning skate at the Garden. "So I've had a lot of great memories here."

The Flames are 2-2-0 on their seven-game road trip, which started with games against the New York Rangers, New Jersey Devils, New York Islanders and Philadelphia Flyers, all of whom play within driving distance of Gaudreau's hometown of Carneys Point, N.J. The rookie is second among first-year players in the NHL with 45 points this season.

He has one assist in the first four games of the Flames road trip.

"Yeah, it's been a pretty busy trip so far with media, family, friends," Gaudreau said. "I mean I've got about 15 people to say hello to at each city on the East Coast here. So you know it's pretty special for me and I try to take it all in."

The Bruins had been hoping to unveil their two acquisitions from the NHL Trade Deadline on Monday, forwards Brett Connolly and Maxime Talbot. But Connolly suffered a broken finger in practice Wednesday and is expected to miss six weeks. Connolly will have surgery soon, according to coach Claude Julien.

Connolly's absence will add to the 107 man games lost to injury for the Bruins.

"It just seems that every day this year we have a new challenge or news like that coming out. … You've got to go through that," Julien said. "But you've got to feel for the player who was really looking forward to coming to us and playing for us and I liked what I saw in practice. Good size, good skater, shoot the puck well and there's no doubt in my mind that he would've helped our hockey club. So I guess we're just going to have to wait a little longer here."

Talbot should play on one of Boston's bottom-two lines. He was acquired from the Colorado Avalanche but had plenty of battles with the Bruins over the years when he was with the Pittsburgh Penguins and Flyers. Bygones are bygones now though.

"It goes away pretty quick. I was saying yesterday that I got into a couple scraps against a couple guys on this team. They were the first ones to welcome me," Talbot said. "So guys are great and I think the more you play … the more you feel at home. But it was very welcoming and I'm excited to be here."

Here are the projected lineups:

FLAMES

Mason Raymond – Sean Monahan – Jiri Hudler

Johnny Gaudreau – Joe Colborne – Josh Jooris

Lance Bouma – Mikael Backlund – David Jones

Michael Ferland – Drew Shore – Brandon Bollig

Kris Russell – Dennis Wideman

TJ Brodie – Deryk Engelland

Raphael Diaz – David Schlemko

Karri Ramo

Jonas Hiller

Scratched: Matt Stajan, Emile Poirier, Corey Potter

Injured: Mark Giordano (arm), Paul Byron (lower body), Ladislav Smid (upper body)

BRUINS

Brad Marchand – Patrice Bergeron – Reilly Smith

Milan Lucic – Ryan Spooner – David Pastrnak

Daniel Paille – Carl Soderberg – Loui Eriksson

Maxime Talbot – Chris Kelly – Brian Ferlin

Zdeno Chara – Dougie Hamilton

Matt Bartkowski – Dennis Seidenberg

Torey Krug – Adam McQuaid

Tuukka Rask

Niklas Svedberg

Scratched: None

Injured: Gregory Campbell (upper body), Brett Connolly (finger), Kevan Miller (shoulder), David Krejci (knee)

Status update: Calgary coach Bob Hartley confirmed Bollig would return to the lineup after sitting out the past four. … Schlemko will make his Flames debut after he was claimed on waivers from the Dallas Stars on Sunday. … Julien said Talbot might start on Kelly's wing or could shift to center with Kelly and Paille switching spots in the lineup. … Campbell took contact in practice for the first time on Wednesday.

Who's hot: Monahan has five goals and nine points in his past eight games for the Flames. Ramo has allowed five goals in his past four games. … Pastrnak has two goals and six points in his past seven games for the Bruins.

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