BRIGHTON, Mass – It wouldn’t be a Bruins practice without a few bodies missing, so both Torey Krug and Ryan Spooner weren't around when the B’s took the ice on Wednesday morning at Warrior Ice Arena.
Krug was taking a maintenance day after the Bruins were off on Tuesday and Spooner was out with a lower-body injury similar to the one that caused him to miss significant time earlier in the season.
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The injury to Spooner may be just the thing to buy the Bruins a little bit of time with the impending return of Jake DeBrusk, who practiced fully on Wednesday and appears fully ready for a return to the lineup on Thursday night against the Arizona Coyotes.
That’s good news for DeBrusk and the B’s as the left winger was red-hot offensively at the time of his injury with two goals and five assists in his previous five games.
“I feel good...better than yesterday. I’m progressing and getting close to action,” said DeBrusk, who has missed the last three games with the undisclosed injury. “You never want to get injured, and especially not when pucks are going in and you’re producing. When I get back I just want to try and do the same thing. It’s frustrating because you want to be in the action and keep playing when you’re hot, but that’s how it went.”
Boston Bruins
Here are the line combos and D-pairings based on practice with Tuukka Rask confirmed as the starting goalie in his fifth consecutive appearance for the Black and Gold:
Marchand-Bergeron-Pastrnak
DeBrusk-Krejci-Bjork
Heinen-Nash-Backes
Vatrano/Schaller-Kuraly-Acciari
Chara-McAvoy
Postma-Carlo
Grzelcyk-Miller
Rask
Khudobin