Krug lands on IR, Bergeron sits vs. Caps
The Bruins list of wounded keeps growing.
Torey Krug was already slated to miss last night's game with an upper body injury, but the Bruins added him to the injured reserve beforehand, using the roster spot to recall forward Paul Carey.
Krug did skate before the game — as did a few other injured Bruins — and head coach Bruce Cassidy wasn’t sure how much the roster move had to do with salary cap flexing or if Krug was going to be out long term, since the move is retroactive to when he was injured last Sunday against Philadelphia.
“I don’t know if it’s finanplay cial,” said Cassidy ahead of the game against the Capitals. “Is he down for a while? Well he was skating (Saturday) so that’s good news. I think it’s, did we need to open a roster spot, it could be as simple as that because it’s retroactive to (last) Sunday against Philly, so didn’t Tuesday, wasn’t going to play (Saturday). So I think he’d still be available, so it might be as simple as that as we needed the spot.”
Urho Vaakanainen played in his third straight contest in Krug’s place, paired with Connor Clifton, while Krug’s usual defense partner, Brandon Carlo, stayed with Matt Grzelcyk.
Bergeron out
Patrice Bergeron finished the game in Toronto on Friday night with what Cassidy called a lower body injury, but he was out for last night against Washington.
According to Cassidy, if it wasn’t a back-to-back, they would have looked for Bergeron to play, but would rather minimize the risk at this point in the season.
“I’m not going to say it’s (a) new (injury), old, or somewhere in between,” said Cassidy. “He finished the game (in Toronto) in a little bit of discomfort. If it wasn’t a back-to-back, we’d hope he’d play the next game, but because it’s backto-back we just want to be careful it isn’t four or five games so he gets the day off.
“I think they call it in Canada with the Raptors as load management, so maybe we’ll label it as that for now.”
Carey played on the right side of the third line centered by Par Lindholm with Trent Frederic on the left, while David Krejci slid up to the top line with Brad Marchand and David Pastrnak.
“So that one’s a bit of a thrown together line,” Cassidy said of the third group.
Players skate
Along with Krug, Jake DeBrusk, John Moore, and Brett Ritchie skated yesterday morning, with Ritchie the closest to making a return.
“He’s getting close,” Cassidy said of Ritchie. “He should get a full practice with the day off (today) so Monday he should be back with the team if there are no setbacks from (Saturday), which he shouldn’t have. If he gets through the contact he should be ready for Tuesday (in New Jersey).”
Karson Kuhlman, Kevan Miller, Zach Senyshyn, and David Backes did not skate. Miller had been skating with the team at practices and morning skates at home for the last week-plus.