The Boston Bruins are going to be a wounded group when they arrive at Raymond James Stadium to take on the Tampa Bay Lightning in the Stadium Series. Elias Lindholm and Pavel Zacha were injured in back-to-back games before travelling to Florida, and they'll now stay back in Boston while the players go to play in one of the season's marquee games.
The Bruins recalled Matt Poitras from the AHL to replace Lindholm for the Philadelphia Flyers game. He stepped in with significant effect, but an injury to Zacha midway through the second period had Fraser Minten playing some important minutes. Poitras will stay with Boston to take part in the outdoor game, and there could be more reinforcements coming from Providence.
The easy move for the Bruins would be to put Alex Steeves in the lineup to replace Zacha and move Marat Khusnutdinov to the middle. Poitras will then center the third line with Steeves and Mikey Eyssimont on his flanks.
Eyssimont was a healthy scratch for most of January, and his performance in the last two games since replacing Steeves in the lineup hasn't been excellent. The Bruins need to grab a couple of points on the Florida trip before heading off for the Olympic break, and they could think outside the box with their roster decisions.
Fabian Lysell has been producing plenty of points in the AHL. He played well with Poitras and Steeves at different points in the season, and an intriguing time to recall Lysell for the first time this season would be to put him on the right side of Poitras to form an all-Providence line at Raymond James.
If the line performs well, it could give the Bruins some hope for the post-Olympic break. Boston could theoretically move some of their trade deadline pieces and keep Lysell and Poitras with the big club to both accrue some assets and continue to contend for the playoffs.
With the way some of the younger players are performing, there's no reason not to believe that the future is now for the Bruins. If Lysell and Poitras could steal a spot in the lineup, it'd make for some interesting decisions for Boston's front office.