3 Keys: Hurricanes at Bruins, Game 6 of Eastern First Round

(1M) Hurricanes at (WC1) Bruins
7 p.m. ET; TNT, SN360, TVAS, NESN, BSSO
Hurricanes lead best-of-7 series, 3-2

The Carolina Hurricanes will try to advance to the Eastern Conference Second Round with a win against the Boston Bruins in Game 6 of the first round at TD Garden on Thursday.
The home team has won each game of the series. Carolina won Games 1 and 2, and Boston won Games 3 and 4 before the Hurricanes returned to PNC Arena for a 5-1 win in Game 5 on Tuesday to take command of the series.
"In my mind, Game 7s are usually a bit of a coin flip," Carolina defenseman Ian Cole said. "We're going to try to avoid that at all costs. We're going to try to win tonight. An absolute must-win. We're going to need to match the level of desperation."
For Boston, of course, it literally is a must-win.
"We have to win one game at home," Bruins coach Bruce Cassidy said. "We're not worried about the next game. We're 2-0 at home in the playoffs. … We need to win a home game. That's all that's in front of us right now. It's not easy to win in the playoffs, but it's not a monumental task. We need to win a home game. We'll sort it out from there."
RELATED: [Complete Hurricanes vs. Bruins series coverage]
The Hurricanes are 10-8 in Game 6 of a best-of-7 series, including 5-4 on the road. When leading 3-2 in a best-of-7 series, Carolina is 8-0. The Bruins have a 23-31 all-time record in Game 6, including 8-9 at home. When trailing 3-2 in a best-of-7 series, they are 4-22.
Overall, teams that hold a 3-2 lead have an all-time series record of 332-88 (.790), including an 8-1 record in the 2021 Stanley Cup Playoffs.
Here are 3 keys for Game 6:

1. Lindholm in, Grzelcyk out

The Bruins got a major boost in Game 5 when defenseman Charlie McAvoy returned from COVID-19 protocol, even though it didn't result in a win. They'll get an equally big boost in Game 6, with the return of Hampus Lindholm, the other half of their top defense pair.
Lindholm left Game 2 after a hit by Hurricanes forward Andrei Svechnikov and missed the next three games.
Asked how soon he felt better, Lindholm said, "It was pretty quick after, actually. Luckily, I'm in good shape enough to take it in a good way and luckily that I didn't take worse."
Matt Grzelcyk, a mainstay of the defenseman group, will sit, with Mike Reilly remaining in the lineup.
"'Grizz' is playing through a little bit of stuff," Cassidy said. "We know that. He has been throughout the year. We've given him certain nights to sort of recover and we just feel now is one of those times. We're going to do that again."

2. Keeping it even

Carolina struggled on the penalty kill in losing Games 3 and 4 in Boston, with the Bruins scoring four goals, despite leading the NHL in penalty killing during the regular season at 88.0 percent. The Hurricanes are hoping to keep Game 6 to even strength as much as possible, given how they were able to control the Bruins at 5-on-5 in Games 1 and 2 at home.
The Bruins have had difficulty scoring -- or even getting their offense going -- at even strength; they have scored six goals at 5-on-5 in the series, 13th among the 15 remaining teams in the postseason.
"We've got to keep this 5-on-5," Cole said. "I think we like our 5-on-5 game. A lot of playoffs and playoff scoring is special teams. But we like our 5-on-5 game. We think it really gives us an opportunity to not only create but wear teams down over the course of a game and over the course of a series. That's something that we're going to try to stick to."

3. Secondary scoring

It's something the Bruins have been missing -- entirely -- during this series and has been problematic enough that Cassidy was forced to reunite his top line of Brad Marchand, Patrice Bergeron and David Pastrnak earlier in the series, given how little the Bruins were getting offensively up front from players like Taylor Hall, Jake DeBrusk, Charlie Coyle and Craig Smith.
For Game 6, Cassidy is returning DeBrusk to right wing with Marchand and Bergeron, with the goal of lengthening the Boston lineup. Pastrnak will skate on right wing with Hall and Erik Haula.
"That's just going back to what we were successful for the second half of the year, how we started the series, essentially," Cassidy said. "We made an adjustment in Game 3 we felt we needed to make, but we always felt we'd like to get back to when we were playing our best hockey. In Game 5, you could see we were going to have to move some pieces around again, and we're going to do it from the start tonight."

Hurricanes projected lineup

Andrei Svechnikov -- Sebastian Aho -- Seth Jarvis
Teuvo Teravainen -- Vincent Trocheck -- Martin Necas
Nino Niederreiter -- Jordan Staal -- Jesper Fast
Max Domi -- Jesperi Kotkaniemi -- Derek Stepan
Jaccob Slavin -- Tony DeAngelo
Brady Skjei -- Brett Pesce
Brendan Smith -- Ian Cole
Antti Raanta
Pyotr Kochetkov
Scratched: Ethan Bear, Steven Lorentz
Injured: Frederik Andersen (lower body), Jordan Martinook (lower body)

Bruins projected lineup

Brad Marchand -- Patrice Bergeron -- Jake DeBrusk
Taylor Hall -- Erik Haula -- David Pastrnak
Trent Frederic -- Charlie Coyle -- Craig Smith
Nick Foligno -- Tomas Nosek -- Curtis Lazar
Hampus Lindholm -- Charlie McAvoy
Mike Reilly -- Brandon Carlo
Derek Forbort -- Connor Clifton
Jeremy Swayman
Linus Ullmark
Scratched: Matt Grzelcyk, Anton Blidh, Chris Wagner, Josh Brown
Injured: None

Status report

Carolina will dress the same lineup it used in Game 5. ... Martinook skated Thursday but will not play; the forward left in the second period of Game 3 after a collision with Hall. … Frederic will play after being a healthy scratch the past three games.