Boston Bruins‘ right wing Ondrej Kase was injured in the second period of last game after an accidental bump up high from New Jersey Devils’ forward Miles Wood.
After the incident, Kase went straight to the locker room and was deemed questionable to return with an upper-body injury. Today, Sunday, Ja. 17, Kase didn’t practice and is considered doubtful for the B’s game tomorrow against the New York Islanders on Long Island.
This isn’t good news for both Boston and Kase as the 25-year-old right wing has a long injury history, especially concussions, which is what this injury most likely is.
Before the injury, Kase was playing on the second line with Jake DeBrusk and David Krejci. After he was injured, coach Bruce Cassidy started the lines blender, putting anyone on any line. But this most likely would’ve happened anyway because of the B’s woes at 5-on-5.
Ondrej Kase’s injury means more mixing and matching for the Boston Bruins.
With Kase injured, the Bruins now have little to no stability for any line. This can be seen by watching the line blender in action after Kase was injured on Saturday and from the lines in today’s practice.
With Kase injured, DeBrusk has moved up to first line right wing from second line left wing, rookie Jack Studnicka is now at second line right wing after previously being on the first line, Nick Ritchie has moved up to the second line, Anders Bjork is at third line left wing and Greg McKegg is at third line right wing. Par Lindholm was also taking reps at first line right wing.
It seems that the only line that’s safe from the blender is the fourth line of rookie Trent Frederic, Sean Kuraly, and Chris Wagner. This makes sense as this line has arguably been the best for the B’s.
Because of Kase’s injury, the Bruins are now forced to play bottom-six and reserve forwards in the top-six. This is certainly not ideal.
To balance things out, the Black and Gold may want to think about moving Charlie Coyle to right wing or second line center. They can also try to claim veteran center Jason Spezza, who was just waived today by the Toronto Maple Leafs. However, Spezza’s agent came out and said that Spezza will retire if claimed by another team.
If you didn’t think that the Bruins had issues at 5-on-5 after watching the first two games, you certainly will now with these lines.