Jake DeBrusk ruled out for Thursday vs. Penguins
By Ty Anderson, 985TheSportsHub.com
The lower-body injury that knocked Jake DeBrusk out of Tuesday’s win over the Penguins kept him out of Wednesday’s practice at Warrior Ice Arena, and will keep him out of Thursday’s rematch, according to B’s head coach Bruce Cassidy.
“DeBrusk will not play [Thursday],” Cassidy confirmed after Wednesday’s practice. “We’ll go from there. We’ll list him as day-to-day, if we have anything better [Thursday], we’ll let you know.”
Done for the night after just four shifts and 3:30 of time on ice, it’s believed that DeBrusk was injured on a hip check from the Penguins’ Sidney Crosby five minutes and change into the opening period.
With the Bruins down their top-line right wing for the final two periods and overtime of their third straight victory, overtime hero Craig Smith picked up the majority of DeBrusk’s shifts with Patrice Bergeron and Brad Marchand. That will seemingly remain the case, too, as Wednesday’s practice came with the veteran Smith with Boston’s one-two punch up front.
This seems like the B’s best play for a simple fill-in, really, as the team will remain without David Pastrnak for at least one more contest (the Bruins are hoping Saturday will come with Pastrnak’s season debut) and remains without a clear update on the status of Ondrej Kase, who was injured in the team’s second game of the 2021 season.
And with Smith pulled away from Charlie Coyle, his linemate from Day 1 of the 2021 season, the Bruins decided to just load up their top-six group, putting Coyle on the right wing of their second line with Nick Ritchie and David Krejci.
That left the Bruins with a de facto fourth line with taxi squad call-up Par Lindholm between Trent Frederic and Jack Studnicka, while the Bruins’ typical fourth line with Anders Bjork and Chris Wagner on Sean Kuraly’s wing remained untouched.
The Bruins have victories in three straight games, and have won nine straight home meetings with the Penguins.
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