Right wing Ondrej Kase will miss his second straight game on Thursday when the Boston Bruins take on the Philadelphia Flyers for their home opener.
Kase was injured in the B’s second game of the season against the New Jersey Devils in the second period after taking an accidental bump up high from Devils’ forward Miles Wood.
Since then, he was considered doubtful for Monday’s game against the New York Islanders, but was ultimately ruled out for the game and later placed on injured reserve (IR).
It hasn’t been revealed exactly what Kase’s injury is (as is the way of the NHL). The most we know is that Kase has an upper-body injury. But we can assume that with Kase’s history of concussions, that the injury is concussion related.
Along with being ruled out for Thursday’s game, head coach Bruce Cassidy also gave an update on when we should expect Kase back. The update was that there isn’t a timetable and we don’t know when he’ll be back.
Ondrej Kase’s injury has had a domino effect on the Boston Bruins’ lineup.
With Kase being absent from the lineup, Coach Cassidy has had to shuffle the lineup. From day one of training camp, Cassidy has been strict with keeping his second line of Jake DeBrusk, David Krejci, and Kase and third line of Nick Ritchie, Charlie Coyle, and Craig Smith together.
However, with Kase out, he now promoted DeBrusk to the first line and Ritchie to the second. Jack Studnicka, who was originally on the first line then scratched for the second game, is now on the second line.
Anders Bjork who has been all around the lineup so far, is currently slotted at the left wing of the third line. The only line that hasn’t been affected by the Kase injury is the fourth line of Trent Frederic, Sean Kuraly, and Chris Wagner.
Many would think that the absence of a top-six forward would negatively impact the Bruins, however, the team put together their best effort against the Islanders. It may not seem like it because of the 1-0 score, but you had to watch to understand.
Overall, the Black and Gold will need almost everyone to step up if they want to win at least one of these next two games against the Flyers. The Flyers are a tough team to beat and are coming off a great redemption shutout win against the Buffalo Sabres.