Boston Bruins center Chris Kelly takes a face-off versus the Ottawa Senators. Mandatory Credit: USA Today.
Earlier in the week we found out Boston Bruins center, Chris Kelly, broke his left tibia after a knee-to-knee collision with Ottawa Senators forward Chris Neil and will be out of commission for quite some time because of the injury.
According to Bruins general manager Peter Chiarelli, Kelly will be “out indefinitely” and there is no timetable currently set for his return to action. His recovery time ranges from 3 to 6 months, so as you can tell its pretty tough to put a timetable on this kind of injury.
Missing from the lineup for that amount of time will be a first for Kelly, who has never missed more than 7 games during a regular season. According to Kelly, who spoke with WEEI.com this morning, “It won’t be the best time”.
For now all he can do is ice his knee to get the swelling down and try his best to keep the left leg strong without further injuring himself, “ just trying to get it better,” said Kelly. “There’s no real time frame. Just come here, work hard, and let the medical staff and trainers do their job.”
Since finding out Kelly will be out for sometime, the Bruins have been scrambling to keep the ship afloat. The 1st, 2nd and 4th lines for the team remain untouched as they all seem to have gelled and are playing some good hockey together. However, with Kelly missing from the 3rd line, Rich Peverley has shifted to center (he’s a natural center anyway) and he’s been flanked by Jordan Caron and Jay Pandolfo. The line has performed admirably and has actually spent a good amount of time in the offensive zone.
With the Bruins sitting pretty at 4th place in the Eastern Conference with a record of 18-4-3, they don’t appear to be in a rush to make a trade to replace Kelly. Instead they’re taking the band-aid approach and it’s working for now.
With that said I’d be shocked if they didn’t make a move and soon to help stabilize and replenish their offensive depth. Because if another forward goes down, things could get real interesting, real quick for the Bruins.