BOSTON – The Bruins are smack dab in the middle of flu and sickness season and might be getting hit with it just prior to the three-day NHL holiday break.
Brad Marchand, Ryan Spooner and Riley Nash were all missing from morning skate Thursday at TD Garden and Bruce Cassidy indicated all three under-the-weather skaters would be game-time decisions when the B’s host the Winnipeg Jets. Center David Krejci will miss his third consecutive game with a cranky back that’s caused him to miss almost as many games (15) as he’s played (18) this season.
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“I don’t want to get too much into it, to be honest with you,” Cassidy said of Krejci. “I think we’ve been pretty up-front with most of our guys. It’s an upper body right now and every day he’s trying to get a little better with it. We’ll see where he’s at, but right now he’s out and we miss him.”
With Jordan Szwarz injured at Providence, forward Colby Cave could be in line for an emergency call-up from the P-Bruins, according to the Providence Journal’s Mark Divver. Cassidy also mentioned the possibility of going with 11 forwards and seven defensemen again against a Western Conference team that has been just as red-hot as the Bruins as of late.
Either way, the Bruins are well-versed in playing with an undermanned lineup given the way the first few months of the season played out and should be able to adjust no matter which players are missing.
Here are the line combos and D-pairings at morning skate:
Boston Bruins
Vatrano-Bergeron-Pastrnak
Heinen-Acciari-Backes
DeBrusk-Kuraly-Bjork
Schaller
Chara-McAvoy
Krug-Carlo
Grzelcyk-Miller
Postma-McQuaid
Rask
Khudobin