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Injuries continue to pile up for Bruins on nightmare trip |
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Ty Anderson
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It’s taken just two games for a four-game road trip to become an absolute nightmare for the Bruins.
That nightmare has almost nothing to do with the fact that the Bruins took a 4-3 overtime loss to the Coyotes at Mullett Arena on Tuesday night. If you look at the first two games of this road trip — which began with a Monday night showdown against the Avalanche — having two of a possible four points through a back-to-back was probably the most likely outcome. For a team like the Bruins, with a comfortable spot in the Atlantic Division standings, it truly doesn’t matter if it’s a 0-0-2 or 1-0-1.
It instead has everything to do with the fact that Tuesday came with two more injuries for the B’s, and at key spots, with both Matt Poitras and Linus Ullmark knocked out of this game.
The 19-year-old Poitras appeared to injure himself on an attempted hit on the Coyotes’ Sean Durzi. In addition to appearing to be in discomfort on the hit itself, Poitras looked to bang his elbow hard on the ice on his fall down to the ice. Poitras ultimately got back to his feet and skated back to the Boston bench, but he was hunched over and clutching at his arm/shoulder the entire time, and it was the last anybody saw of him on the ice after a brief chat with the B’s training staff.
“Upper body [and] I don’t know the extent of it,” Bruins head coach Jim Montgomery said when asked for an update on Poitras following the defeat.
Ullmark, meanwhile, suffered what looked like a potentially serious injury when he went into the splits on an overtime glove-save attempt with 2:20 remaining in the overtime frame. The 6-foot-5 Ullmark, who made 32 saves on 35 shots prior to his exit, was unable to put any weight on his legs as he made his way off the ice with help from his teammates and the training staff.
“It’s a lower-body [injury],” Montgomery confirmed after the loss. “I don’t know the extent of it yet. I’ll know more about it [Wednesday] or whenever we’re together again.”
(Wednesday is a travel day for the Bruins, by the way, and they currently do not have any plans for media availability, making Thursday the likely day for any sort of update on Ullmark.)
Ullmark’s injury proved to be Boston’s undoing in this game, too, as it forced an ice cold Jeremy Swayman into this game after watching the previous 62:40 as Ullmark’s backup.
Swayman, who was not granted any warm-up shots as per the NHL’s rules on in-game goalie changes, allowed the game-winning goal on the first shot he faced, which saw Nick Schmaltz take advantage of all the open ice in front of him before a top-shelf strike with a kind bounce from the post.
In the opposite crease, the Coyotes’ Connor Ingram finished with a 30-of-33 line in the Arizona net. Ingram came through some big-time stops late, from his late-game stops on Brad Marchand and Charlie Coyle with two and a half minutes remaining in the third period to a beauty of a glove save on an overtime breakaway from the Bruins’ David Pastrnak in the opening moments of the OT frame.
Carlo termed ‘day-to-day’ by Bruins’ Montgomery
If you want some good news on the injury front, Montgomery and the Bruins have officially labeled Brandon Carlo as “day-to-day.” Dealing with an upper-body injury that kept him out of the second half of Monday’s contest against the Avalanche, Carlo also remains with the team on this road trip, which is another good sign when it comes to his injury. (The good news there is that if an injury is serious enough, the team will typically send a player back to their home city, where they can meet with their doctors and their specialists as soon as possible.)
With Carlo out, the Bruins moved Parker Wotherspoon to his off side and had him skate to the right of Hampus Lindholm on Boston’s second pairing.
Carlo’s injury also opened the door for Mason Lohrei’s return to the lineup.
Lohrei finished Tuesday’s game with one hit, one block, and a minus-1 rating earned when Lohrei slipped at the attacking blue line and gave the Coyotes’ Lawson Crouse a clear lane to the Boston net for a rebound goal scored by Arizona’s Matias Maccelli.
Everything else
- Another night where Bruins head coach Jim Montgomery did not like his team’s start. It’s been a definite trend. And on nights where the Bruins don’t have a goalie or Pastrnak takeover — though they came pretty close on Tuesday night — that’s not a recipe for success.
- What you had to love most about that Jake DeBrusk goal: Hampus Lindholm’s decisiveness. When Lindholm has struggled this year, his clear-and-visible overthinking and hanging onto the puck for a little too long has been glaring. Lindholm knew what he was doing with that puck before it even hit his stick. The Bruins need more of that Lindholm.
- A savvy veteran move from the Coyotes’ Clayton Keller in this one: As soon as he dished the puck to Schmaltz in overtime, he made a move to inside ice and executed a slight pick on David Pastrnak to open even more ice up for Schmaltz. Keller, who played his college hockey at Boston University, is up to four goals and nine points in 12 career games against the Bruins.
Up next: The Bruins will head to Vegas for a Thursday night showdown with Bruce Cassidy and the Golden Knights. The B’s went 1-0-1 against the Knights last season.
Ty Anderson is a writer and columnist for 985TheSportsHub.com. He has been covering the Bruins since 2010, and has been a member of the Boston chapter of the PHWA since 2013. Any opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of 98.5 The Sports Hub, Beasley Media Group, HockeyBuzz.com or any subsidiaries. Yell at him on Twitter/X: @_TyAnderson.
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