The Boston Bruins welcome the Tampa Bay Lightning to town Thursday night -- and they'll be doing so with an additional friendly face.
Marc Sarvard, who hasn't played since May, is expected to make his season debut Thursday night, according to numerous reports.
Boston, which is 13-8-2, has been struggling lately but has a chance to win their second game is as many days. And their odds are good with Tim Thomas in the net. Thomas is 12-2-1 with five shutouts this season after blanking Tampa Bay Wednesday night.
Thomas made 41 stops to help Boston get some measure of revenge against the Flyers. The last time these teams had faced each other was in last season's Eastern Conference semifinals, which saw the Flyers become just the third team in NHL history to rally from a 3-0 series deficit by winning the last four games.
"I watch them on TV and even last year in the playoffs and they do some pretty funny stuff," Thomas of the Flyers. "It isn't just shooting from the outside and crashing the net, they do a little bit of everything so I was trying to be ready for anything."