BRIGHTON, Mass. — There’s still plenty of question whether David Krejci is going to play on Thursday night after he exited practice early on Wednesday morning at Warrior Ice Arena.
Krejci left Monday afternoon’s win over the Ducks in the second period with an upper body injury that limited him to just seven minutes on the ice, but he did appear at Wednesday’s practice cleared for contact while wearing a normal white practice sweater.
Krejci did leave halfway through the practice session, though, and it was Charlie Coyle centering Jake DeBrusk and Brett Ritchie in a makeshift second line that could be what we see Thursday night against the Tampa Bay Lightning.
Bruce Cassidy called things “day-to-day” with Krejci at this point, but didn’t rule him out from playing against Tampa.
“He’s nursing an upper body injury, so he skated half of practice. Tomorrow we’ll see how he is. We’ll rule him as day-to-day and I’m not going to rule him out [against the Lightning] and I won’t say he’s definitely in,” said Cassidy, who also added that defenseman Kevan Miller (fractured kneecap) has begun skating on his own ahead of Bruins practice as well.
The 33-year-old Krejci already missed time at the beginning of the season with a lower body injury suffered during the preseason and will have already missed more games with injuries this season (two) than he did all of last year if he can’t suit up against the divisional rival Lightning. That’s a bit of a warning sign for a player in Krejci who’s had injury issues in his recent past and is an aging player coming off a heavy workload last season with the extra 24 games played during the postseason.
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Here are the line combos and D-pairings from Wednesday’s Bruins practice:
FORWARD LINES
| Brad Marchand | Patrice Bergeron | David Pastrnak |
| Jake DeBrusk | Charlie Coyle | Brett Ritchie |
| Danton Heinen/David Backes | Par Lindholm | Karson Kuhlman |
| Joakim Nordstrom | Sean Kuraly | Chris Wagner |
DEFENSIVE PAIRINGS
| Zdeno Chara | Charlie McAvoy |
| Torey Krug | Brandon Carlo |
| Matt Grzelcyk/Connor Clifton | Steven Kampfer |
GOALIES
| Tuukka Rask | Jaroslav Halak |
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