When the Bruins come out before their fans tonight to play against the Nashville Predators, there are going to be some familiar faces missing and some new faces around. Some of those new faces will be here permanently, so keep a close eye on their play tonight. The Bruins will be without Milan Lucic (broken finger, LTIR) and Marc Savard (broken foot, LTIR). Shawn Thornton is doubtful for the game with an undisclosed injury.

The Bruins are coming home for one game after a two-game road trip in Dallas and Phoenix. The Coyotes beat the Bruins 4-1 on Saturday. The Predators are coming off a 4-3 shootout lost against the Washington Capitals. (Had to confirm with my Predators fan friend because I closed game notes already.)

Goalies: *
Nashville: Dan Ellis (2-1-1, 2.80 GAA, .903 Sv%); Pekka Rinne (0-3-0, 3.46 GAA, .894 Sv%)
Boston: Tim Thomas (2-3-0, 3.20 GAA, .896 Sv%); Tuukka Rask (1-1-0, 3.39 GAA, .883 Sv%)
*Starters are underlined.

Injuries: Savard and Lucic are out. Thornton is doubtful.

Need to Know: After Chuck Kobasew was traded, the Bruins recalled Vladimir Sobotka and Brad Marchand. The Bruins acquired Daniel Paille from Buffalo, who will be wearing #20. Trent Whitfield was recalled today on emergency basis and will be wearing #42. Craig Weller (acquired in the Kobasew traded) and Guillaume Lefebvre were assigned to Providence. Dennis Wideman will be returning to the line-up.

Debuts: Marchand will be playing in his first NHL game tonight. Whitfield and Paille will be playing in their first games as Bruins.

The Bruins will have a bit of a test tonight without their number one center in the line-up and a few new additions. It will be interesting to see how they match up against the Predators, who are without Jason Arnott. We all know injuries happen, but to lose Lucic and Savard in the same week, as well as a couple of trades, it's a lot to get used to.

The Bruins will travel to Philadelphia for a game tomorrow. This is their second set of back-to-back games of the season, and of the week.

So I was at Kohl's finding some cool Bruins ornaments that I've never seen before. (Bruins stuff is hard for things like ornaments and other things, while the Red Sox and Patriots stuff is never hard to come by.)

I was checking Twitter after checking out and as I was closing Tweetie 2 on my iPhone I saw the words, "Kobasew" "trade" and "Wild." I said out loud to nobody in particular, "did I just read what I think I read?"

I sure did. I expected Chuck Kobasew to be traded after James Murphy (of Inside Hockey and NESN) tweeted during the Dallas game that the Wild and Bruins were talking about Kobasew.

The Bruins acquired the Wild's 2011 second-round pick, the rights to forward Alexander Fallstrom, and forward Craig Weller.

Weller, a fifth round selection of the St. Louis Blues in the 2000 NHL Entry Draft (167th overall), has played in 95 NHL games with the Phoenix Coyotes and Minnesota Wild and has 4-10=14 totals with 127 penalty minutes. This season, Weller has played five games for the Houston Aeros (AHL) and has one assist and seven penalty minutes. Last season, Weller played in 36 games for the Wild and earned 1-2=3 totals and 47 PIM's. - press release

There is no doubt Kobasew had a slow start to the season and draft picks are valuable nowadays. I am a little surprised about the return Bruins' general manager Peter Chiarelli got in the trade. But that does show what the value of Kobasew was to another team and it all evens out.

In other news, the Bruins recalled forwards Brad Marchand and Vladimir Sobotka from Providence. Guillaume Lefebvre was loaned to Providence and recalled again. Milan Lucic has been placed on the long-term injured reserve with a broken thumb.

As a fan of Kobasew, I can't say I am happy about the trade. However, since it makes room for a player like Marchand when there is barely any room, I'm all for it. Wish Kobasew the best in Minnesota and hopefully this will kick the Bruins a kick in their pants.

Guillaume Lefebvre has been recalled from Providence on emergency basis. Milan Lucic will miss tonight's game against the Phoenix Coyotes with an undisclosed injury. Lucic played in last night's 3-0 win over the Dallas Stars.

Lefebvre's last NHL appearance came in 2005-06 when he played for Pittsburgh. Lefebvre had appeared in four games for Providence this season, registering one assist and 25 penalty minutes.

The 6-foot-1, 195-pound wing was invited to camp on a tryout basis. Lefebvre signed a one-year, $500,000 contract on Sept. 26. In 70 AHL games last season for Springfield, Lefebvre scored four goals and nine assists while racking up 206 penalty minutes.

Lefebrve will make his Bruins' debut tonight. The Bruins game starts at 9.

Vladimir Sobotka was assigned to Providence earlier today as the Bruins fine tuned their opening night roster. Sobotka appeared to make the varsity roster as the extra forward in case David Krejci was unable to play. The assignment of Sobotka appears to mean that Krejci is ready to go in the team's season opener against the Washington Capitals tomorrow.

The opening night roster shakes out like this:

Milan Lucic - Marc Savard - Marco Sturm
Blake Wheeler - David Krejci - Michael Ryder
Mark Recchi - Patrice Bergeron - Chuck Kobasew
Shawn Thornton - Steve Begin - Byron Bitz

Zdeno Chara - Derek Morris
Andrew Ference - Dennis Wideman
Mark Stuart - Matt Hunwick
Johhny Boychuk

Tim Thomas
Tuukka Rask

Boychuk makes the team as the extra defenseman. There is no indication whether Boychuk or Hunwick will be in the line-up tomorrow. Krejci should be centering the second line as he seems to be fully recovered from offseason hip surgery.

The 2009-2010 season starts tomorrow. Are you ready?

Boston Bruins coach Claude Julien was signed to a contract extension on Friday. He had one year left on his contract and received an extension. The terms/years were not released. That bothers me a little bit. Terms and conditions always get disclosed at some point. I talked to a few other fans and sources and the majority seem to think it is a three year deal. I hope Julien sticks around for a while. There hasn't been a coach in Boston in a while that can get the absolute best from his players on a relatively consistent basis.

With that said, can you remember when Bruins fans hated Julien during the 2004 playoffs against the Montreal Canadiens? Seeing footage of that playoff series and the 2008 playoffs doesn't bother me so much anymore knowing that he's on the right side now.

Moving onto a different tangent now, I went to a couple of informal skates this past week. (Pictures can be found in the gallery.) There are no words to describe what it was like to see familiar faces (Dennis Wideman, Tim Thomas, Shawn Thornton, Milan Lucic) and Providence Bruins (Andrew Bodnarchuk, Brad Marchand, Johnny Boychuk, Zach Hamill) back on the ice. And there are also no words to describe what it was like to see Andrew Ference with hair. (I'm sorry Andrew, but he hardly has any hair during the season.)

September is one of my favorite months and within reason. It doesn't even matter who is on the ice as long as I hear skates cutting into the ice and pucks hitting the boards. No other sound compares.

The rookies are up in Kitchener Ontario now. There are a few other teams holding rookie camps up there. Best of luck to the Bruins' rookies. I think informal skates will continue in Wilmington while the rookies are away. But I can't wait to see everybody at training camp on the 13th. It's crazy to think the regular season starts in less than a month.