The Boston Bruins would love to have veteran forwards Danny Paille and Chris Kelly in their lineup. I don’t think that that’s an outlandish or even debatable point. Both players, key parts of the successful Stanley Cup run in 2011 and last year’s run to the Finals, bring an immense amount of value to the Black-and-Gold’s bottom six forward core.

The 33-year-old Kelly is one of the club’s alternate captains, the secondary defensive faceoff option behind Patrice Bergeron, and has eight goals and 19 points in 54 playoff games as a Bruin. Meanwhile, Paille, a former first round pick, brings the element of speed to the Bruins’ famed Merlot Line, and had the best penalty differential on the B’s in 2013-14, drawing 16 penalties while taking just three penalties all season long, giving him a plus-13 in that department.

Both players log substantial minutes on Boston’s penalty killing unit, as well. Their contributions, while not always accounted for on your end of game box score, are noticeable.

But with injuries limiting both of these players’ ability to contribute during practice let alone a game, they haven’t been able to skate in either of Boston’s two first round games against the Detroit Red Wings to date, forcing Jordan Caron and Justin Florek into the lineup. And while it seems terrifying that more than one nagging injury puts Providence roleplayers in the middle of a Stanley Cup Playoff run, it seems as if the young guns are adapting to a playoff pace just fine.

In the case of Florek, the 6-foot-4 winger’s skated with Carl Soderberg and Loui Eriksson, and after the trio stood out as Boston’s best line in a Game 1 loss, the 23-year-old opened up Boston’s scoring with the hustle that’s earned him some mid-April NHL minutes. Jumping on a loose puck, Florek took advantage of a poor Detroit line change and Jimmy Howard mishandling of the puck, giving him a wide open cage for his first career playoff goal.

That, more so than any physical intimidation the Bruins engaged in on Sunday, was playoff hockey.

“I think it was great for him. It was also great for the team, I think, to give us that early lead and really get that confidence going, that energy that we were looking for,” B’s Head Coach Claude Julien said of Florek’s Game 2 goal. “That was a big goal for us, so it was great to see him stay on it and react well and quick enough so that it ended up being a good goal for us.”

For Florek, it’s just about contributing in any (positive) way possible.

“You’ve got to always be ready,” Florek said of the opportunity that led to his first career playoff goal. “So you’re sitting on the bench you’ve just got to keep your legs loose and everything, and when you get the chance you’ve just got to be ready, so that was a big part of it. It’s great to get confidence and everything, and to get that goal was pretty cool. But it was just great to get the team going.”

On the fourth line, the unnecessary scapegoat of the 2013-14 Bruins (though I guess it’s hard to find one when so many things go right), the 23-year-old Caron, has provided a steady forechecking game for the Bruins through the first two games of the postseason. You look at how Caron began his Game 1, slamming Detroit’s Brendan Smith on the forecheck, and though he missed an empty net on a wraparound, the Bruins are still finding ways to create offense with Caron out there.

So long as his confidence doesn’t vanish -- a problem that’s been well documented through his tenure here -- there’s no reason to fret when it comes to giving Caron his seven to nine minutes of ice time.

There’s comfort in knowing that these players are performing at a level somewhat similar to those that they’re replacing, especially when it sounds like it’s going to take both Paille and Kelly some significant practice time before rejoining the club in game action.

“I think there’s a certain route you have to take and it’s no different than — we talked about Matt Bartkowski being out for that long and being sick. We have to allow him to skate a little bit and get himself back into, I guess, into the groove of things before you throw him into a game,” Julien said on Monday. “So I don’t see those guys being much, much different. So again, it’s a day to day process and I’m just waiting to hear when those guys — Paille’s out there skating, so that’s the right direction, but we’ll have to go about our injuries just like we normally would: in a safe and proper manner.”

And after the welcomed sight of a healthy Kevan Miller in Boston’s Game 2 victory, there seems to be more good news coming on that front, as Bartkowski will be a game-time decision for tonight’s pivotal Game 3 meeting at the Joe Louis Arena.

Bartkowski, who began practicing with the team earlier this week after missing all of last week and weekend with a virus, will take part in the pregame warmup tonight, and could be set to rejoin the club if all goes well. He’d likely replace the 28-year-old Andrej Meszaros, who has been skating in his place with Johnny Boychuk on Boston’s second defensive pairing.

Winning Game 2 with an improvement in their neutral zone play and by shutting Pavel Datsyuk down (he had just one shot in Game 2), the Black-and-Gold know that they can’t take their foot off the gas and sway from their north-south game that worked so well on Sunday afternoon, even if the setting shifts to Detroit’s home barn for the next two contests.

“I think that’s what we didn’t do well enough in the first game,” Julien said. “We didn’t have enough speed through the neutral zone and without speed or your feet moving in the neutral zone it’s hard to get on the forecheck so that was probably a big part of our game that improved yesterday. That’s got to be existent in the next games if we are going to give ourselves a chance.”

Back at the Joe, the Wings have admitted that they’re not a team that wants to go toe-to-toe with the B’s physicality. On Monday, Detroit Head Coach Mike Babcock even said that they’d rather ‘play pool than fight the biggest guy at the bar’, referencing Smith going at Zdeno Chara.

“I think we got to stay out of the BS out there and just play whistle to whistle, and not worry about getting into the scrums or anything like that and proving your manhood out there,” Howard said on Sunday. “Just skate, play our hockey, don’t get into their motive and get into their scrap playing real physical. Just get back to playing our game.”

Now away from the friendly TD Garden, it’ll be interesting to see just what the B’s will and won’t be able to get away with against the less physical Red Wings.

On a down note for the Wings, veteran winger Daniel Alfredsson, who’s looked limited at best, will miss tonight’s game with a back injury, forcing Joakim Andersson back into action. The 25-year-old Andersson scored eight goals and 17 points in 65 games this season, and takes to the ice with a goal and five points in 14 career playoff games.

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