Boston Bruins Dennis Seidenberg Set To Miss Eight Weeks
By Jay Peterson
According to the Boston Bruins official website, Don Sweeney announced that defenseman Dennis Seidenberg will undergo a lumbar microdiscectomy on Thursday, September 24th. After the surgery, it is expected that Seidenberg will be sidelined for around two months.
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This is devastating news for all Bruins and will have a huge impact on how Boston begins their regular season. Seidenberg was listed as day to day during the past week of training camp, but, now that his absence in regular season is clear, someone is going to have an even greater chance of making this Boston Bruins team.
As it stands, the top six looks like it will be Zdeno Chara, Torey Krug, Matt Irwin, Adam McQuaid, Zach Trotman and Kevan Miller. With three left handed offensive defenseman (Chara, Krug and Irwin) and three right handed defensive defenseman (McQuaid, Trotman and Miller), pairing these players with one another should not be much of an issue.
What should be more of a concern is the penalty kill. It should be assumed that Chara, McQuaid, Trotman and Miller will have the penalty killing responsibilities, but only one of them, Chara, is left handed. Also, if one of these four defenseman were to also get injured or not play well within the next eight weeks, it could put the Bruins at a serious disadvantage.
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Look for Claude Julien and his coaching staff to keep an extra amount of defenseman up during this training camp, especially those who are defensively sound. Players like Chris Casto, Colin Miller, Joe Morrow and Linus Arnesson would be the front runners to help fill in the Bruins roster, but it needs to be stressed that Bruins management will be looking for a player similar in style to Seidenberg to replace him, if need be.
For now, the top six defenseman mentioned will most likely do the job on their own, but a seventh defenseman, one who would need t be ready to step in on any given night, will need to be chosen. Before Seidenberg’s surgery, the seventh defenseman role was one that would belong to Kevan Miller, Matt Irwin or Zach Trotman, depending on their performances. Now that they will all be playing, the seventh spot is up for grabs and it is anyone’s guess as to who will eventually take it to start the regular season.
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