Standout defenseman Lindholm out ‘week to week’
The news could have been worse, but the Bruins will have to live without Hampus Lindholm for a while.
Coach Jim Montgomery told reporters in Edmonton that Lindholm will be out “week to week” but that the left-shot defenseman will not require surgery. At the very least, he will miss the difficult four-game road trip that was set to begin Wednesday against the hot Oilers, who had won 20 of their previous 23 games.
Lindholm appeared to suffer some sort of leg injury midway through the third period of Monday’s 4-3 shootout win when he got tangled up with Dallas Stars’ forward Ty Dellandrea. He left the game and did not return.
Lindholm has had a drop-off in point production this year (1-18-19 in 56 games) but he’ll be missed. He’s second on the team in ice time, averaging 23:42.
Rookie defenseman Mason Lohrei was called up from Providence and plugged into Lindholm’s spot next to Brandon Carlo on the second pairing as well as on the second power-play unit.
In 27 games with the big club, Lohrei had 3-3—6 totals and was minus-4. In 17 games in Providence, he had 1-12-13 totals and was plus13. Lohrei had suffered cut on his leg from a skate that caused him to miss a short amount of time, but he had returned to action in Providence before the call-up.
“Both times he’s come and played for us, he’s been really good coming up from Providence. Our expectation is we know what he is, he’s a good hockey player, he’s someone who’s helped us win a lot of hockey games this year and we expect him to do that (again),” said Montgomery.
The only other change to the lineup was Parker Wotherspoon going in for Kevin Shattenkirk on the third pairing. Wotherspoon had been scratched the previous two games.