Boston Bruins Dealing With Multiple Injuries and Call-Ups

Boston Bruins Dealing With Multiple Injuries and Call-Ups After Loss To The New Jersey Devils

The Boston Bruins lost to the New Jersey Devils on Tuesday night in what seemed like a must-win game. While the Bruins got some help from their long-time rivals, the Montreal Canadiens who beat the Detroit Red Wings to keep them at bay for the time being, the Bruins didn’t escape Tuesday unscathed. The Bruins held their practice at Ristuccia Arena on Wednesday as usual, but the list of absentees and new-faces were numerous.

Ryan Spooner and John-Michael Liles both missed Tuesdays game against the Devils with injuries. While Liles was present at the Bruins practice on Wednesday, some other notable names were missing. David Krejci, Brett Connolly, and Dennis Seidenberg were missing from the Bruins practice, and the Bruins were forced to make some emergency call-ups as a result.

Providence forwards Austin Czarnik and Seth Griffith were called up to the Bruins’ main roster on Wednesday, marking Czarnik’s first time being listed on the Bruins’ NHL roster. The Bruins practice lines and defense pairings were as follows:

Forwards:

Brad Marchand – Patrice Bergeron – Loui Eriksson

Matt Beleskey– Seth Griffith – David Pastrnak

Frank Vatrano – Austin Czarnik – Lee Stempniak

Landon Ferraro– Noel Acciari – Jimmy Hayes / Tyler Randell

Defense:

Zdeno Chara – Kevan Miller

Torey Krug – Adam McQuaid

John-Michael Liles – Joe Morrow

Zach Trotman

Per Amalie Benjamin of the Boston Globe, most of missing players are day-to-day with Dennis Seidenberg‘s situation potentially being worse than the rest.

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Claude Julien had this to say  at practice about the missing players and their potential return dates “There are situations where we don’t know if it’s tomorrow, or the day after,” In typical Bruins’ fashion, Claude Julien seemed hush on the extent of the specifics of the players missing. “I’m not going to go into details about injuries, but there were guys here today from Providence because we’ve got four guys missing today. We’ll see where we go from there.”

While many have been calling for both Seth Griffith and Austin Czarnik to be called up at multiple points of the 2015-16 season, it’s unlikely that most will be happy about the timing in which it finally happened. Both players are very talented individuals who have been playing at a very high level down in the AHL for the Providence Bruins, but with a must-win final stretch of the season highlighted by games against the Chicago Blackhawks and St Louis Blues coming up, the two young forwards will have to step right into the fire assuming there is no change on the Bruins’ current injury status.

Next: The Montreal Canadiens Did The Bruins a Favor

Seth Griffith has been unbelievable this season in Providence, tied for second in points with 67 — which includes a league-leading 45 assists) in only 51 games. Griffith has played in 32 games for the Bruins with two coming this season. He has one point in those two games which he tallied against the Ottawa senators. As mentioned, Austin Czarnik has never been called up to the NHL before, but he has put together a very impressive rookie season for the Providence Bruins. In 59 games this season, Czarnik has 52 points including 15 goals in 37 assists which ranks him third among P-Bruins players. Both players have certainly earned call-up opportunities, the timing just seems bad for reasons outside of the Bruins, or the young forwards control.