Bruins provide latest on Brad Marchand injury
Already down 2-1 in their second-round series with the Panthers, the Bruins may very well have to soldier on without captain Brad Marchand available for Sunday’s Game 4 at TD Garden.
Ruled out of action — termed ‘unlikely to return’ — after two periods of play in Friday’s 6-2 loss, Marchand was not on the ice for Saturday’s practice at Brighton’s Warrior Ice Arena, and B’s head coach Jim Montgomery’s update on team’s leading scorer did not sound encouraging.
“Upper-body, day-to-day,” Montgomery said when asked for a Marchand update.
Hit hard (and popped in the face on the hit) by the Panthers’ Sam Bennett early in the first period of play, the 5-foot-9 Marchand would remain in action for the remainder of the first period and all of the second period, but did not look like his normal self before being lifted from the game.
With Marchand unavailable for Saturday’s skate, the Bruins essentially threw their lines into a blender and pressed ‘max power’ in what could be a sign of what’s to come on Sunday.
Up top, the Bruins put Jake DeBrusk and Morgan Geekie to the left of David Pastrnak on what you would consider Boston’s top line or the closest thing they would have to a top line in the now. Pavel Zacha, meanwhile, moved back to center and on a line with James van Riemsdyk and Justin Brazeau on the wings, while Danton Heinen moved to the left of the Charlie Coyle and Trent Frederic combination.
“Jake was being intense on pucks, coming up with loose pucks as [Pastrnak] was, and, Geekie was working, so I just put those three guys together,” Montgomery said of his switch-up. “It just happened kind of organically because [Marchand] wasn’t there.”
And if Marchand is indeed out tomorrow, the task in front of the B’s only gets taller, but it’s one that Coyle hopes brings the best out of the Black and Gold with the series still within reach.
“You want everyone to be healthy and everyone chip in, but that’s an opportunity for guys to step up, and we can do that,” Coyle said of potentially playing without Marchand. “And I think you saw Toronto do that against us earlier with [Auston] Matthews out. They came together and threw together a couple of good games without him. So it’s just an opportunity for us, and I think you’ll see guys take on more responsibility and opportunity and rise to that occasion. We do it together, and we want to play for guys who are not in the lineup and wish they could be out there in the lineup. And, that’s why we play out here.
“We play for each other, and that’s something we want to do tomorrow.”
Bruins Game-Breaker: From momentum to disaster in second period
The Bruins had life.
It was only 1-0. Goaltender Jeremy Swayman had just made a massive save to snuff out a 2-on-1 rush. They kept the puck in the Panthers’ end for 1:11 straight at one point. They forechecked, they stayed strong on the puck, strong along the boards, strong at the blue line.
But all it took was one play at the other end to extinguish the Bruins’ momentum. Defenseman Mason Lohrei ran his stick up too high on the Panthers’ Steven Lorentz, and gave him a fat lip. So, referee Dan O’Rourke did his dental exam and slapped Lohrei with a four-minute penalty.
Less than four minutes later, the game was effectively out of reach.
That devastating sequence in the second period of the Bruins’ Game 3 loss to the Panthers essentially decided things. The B’s were able to pick it back up for much of the third period, at one point cutting the Panthers’ lead from four down to two, but it was too little, too late.
