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Simon Gagne will reportedly play tonight, Patrice Bergeron skates

Simon Gagne

Tampa Bay Lightning’s Simon Gagne (12) returns to the bench after scoring a second-period goal in Game 5 of the first-round of NHL Stanley Cup playoff series against the Pittsburgh Penguins in Pittsburgh Saturday, April 23, 2011. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

AP

There was a sick kind of symmetry to the dual head injuries suffered by Boston Bruins center Patrice Bergeron and Tampa Bay Lightning sniper Simon Gagne. To be honest, I’ve always thought of the two as parallel stories anyway. Both Bergeron and Gagne nearly saw their careers fall apart because of concussions, yet each player seemed like light at the end of the tunnel recovery examples for sufferers around the league.

Unfortunately, each player saw their problems rear their ugly heads again during the playoffs, as Gagne was sidelined thanks to a Scott Hannan hit while Bergeron suffered a “mild concussion” thanks to a collision with Claude Giroux.

There’s at least one big difference between the two situations: the passage of time. Gagne suffered his injury about a week before Bergeron dealt with his, so maybe today’s notes shouldn’t be too surprising.

Damian Cristodero reports that Guy Boucher will go with 11 forwards and seven defensemen, with Gagne in the lineup while Blair Jones will be out. (Raise your hand if you even noticed Jones in the lineup before. Hey, don’t lie.) The Lightning have been using Marc-Andre Bergeron as a seventh defenseman/forward, which kind of makes sense since the offensive blueliner isn’t exactly known for his play in his own zone anyway.

The Bruins will get big defenseman Adam McQuaid back in the lineup, but Patrice Bergeron won’t be back yet. Boston’s Bergeron did, however, participate in a “light skate” according to Joe Haggerty. The two-way center reportedly got “a little bit of a sweat going” and could be on track to return by Game 5 (barring any setbacks), according to Haggerty’s report.

Both the Bruins and Lightning experienced unusually large layoffs between their second round matches and this third round series. We’ve already seen the benefit in the form of Gagne’s expected comeback, but we’ll learn more about how the rest vs. rust quotient works out for each team on the ice tonight (on Versus at 8 p.m. ET).