Injury puts Krejci back on shelf
The Bruins had been enjoying a run of some good health lately, but it apparently caught up to them.
David Krejci was a late scratch last night with what the club described as an upper-body injury. He was termed day-to-day, but he did not travel with the club to Buffalo for tonight’s game against the Sabres.
As of last night, the injury was rather mysterious. Krejci was a full participant in the team’s morning skate, took his place in the morning line rushes between Jake DeBrusk and Ryan Spooner and spoke with several reporters after the skate as he normally does. Coach Bruce Cassidy also announced in his morning press briefing that he’d be going with the same lineup as he did on Saturday. But sometime between late morning and pregame warm-ups, something apparently flared up on him.
“I feel bad (yesterday) because when I left the ice it was my understanding that he was fine. It’s an upper-body injury, didn’t feel good after he got off the ice. He talked to the trainers about it so, he’s going to deal with that. He won’t travel with us, so he’ll be out (tonight in Buffalo) but he’ll be day-to-day,” Cassidy said before the 7-2 win over Columbus.
Earlier this year, Krejci missed 11 games with a back injury and the B’s struggled during that time, going 3-4-4.
With Krejci out, Spooner moved back to center and Anders Bjork returned to the lineup after being a healthy scratch for one game.
Power points
With two power-play goals last night, the Bruins have now scored PP goals in six of their last seven games. But they weren’t feeling all that positive about the man-advantage, especially after a very uneven performance against the Rangers on Saturday. The first unit still had its issues last night. One problem Cassidy sees is the players are sometimes looking for the perfect play, another is that the players can be too “static” and as a result are not recovering pucks well. Cassidy said he’s spoken with the guys on the unit.
“We knew we weren’t very good on it the other night and we needed to at least have a conversation about what was going wrong,” said Cassidy. “We brought both groups in and talked to the vocal guys in each group and tried to get everyone together on the same page and air out any differences. Sometimes that’s it. Guys get frustrated. They’re skilled guys and they’re used to scoring. … It’s frustrating for all of us.”
Fourth-line fury
While it was the only line not to get on the scoreboard, the fourth line was very good against the Blue Jackets. The trio got 12 shots on net and one from Sean Kuraly hit the post. Tim Schaller also earned a third-period penalty shot — the first of his career. Sergei Bobrovsky thwarted his backhander.
“I had an idea and that was what I wanted to do. I wanted to add a little something to it, but I thought maybe I could get him with that. If I could have put it up a little more I might have had him but those goalies always find their way to get in my way,” cracked Schaller, who hasn’t scored since Nov. 6. …
As expected, Adam McQuaid did not return last night from a broken fibula, but Cassidy did not rule him out for tonight’s game in Buffalo. With the B’s at the 23-man roster limit, they will have to make a roster move. But if they intend to make a move for a McQuaid return, they’ll have to do it soon. The holiday roster freeze goes into effect at 11:59 p.m. tonight and lasts until 12:01 am on Dec. 28.
Pasta streak
David Pastrnak stretched his consecutive points streak to a career-high 12 games. The winger assisted on Patrice Bergeron’s goal with 2:34 remaining.
Brad Marchand, meanwhile, stretched his careerlong streak to nine games with a goal and an assist. He’s notched at least a point in every game since returning from a concussion. …
The blowout allowed Cassidy to keep the minutes of top guys reasonable with the second half of the back-toback in Buffalo tonight. Both Bergeron and Marchand were under 18 minutes, while Zdeno Chara played 22:15.