The Boston Bruins had to play the Philadelphia Flyers without two of their regular forwards and one defenseman on Saturday afternoon.
The Bruins surprisingly recalled veteran forward Patrick Brown on Saturday morning, and just prior to their game against the Philadelphia Flyers on Saturday afternoon, head coach Jim Montgomery explained why he announced the lineup for Saturday and forwards Jake DeBrusjk and Matthew Poitras, as well as defenseman Derek Forbort were not in it.
“There’s no motivation; we have a couple of guys that are banged up, so they’re not playing,” Montgomery replied when asked why the aforementioned trio wouldn’t be playing.
The Boston Bruins bench boss was then asked how injured the DeBrusk, Poitras, and Forbort were.
“I don’t have concrete answers on everybody,” Montgomery replied. “J.D. [DeBrusk] is the only one that’s day-to-day.”
Montgomery told the assembled media pregame that one of the injuries was a prior injury ‘lingering’ and the other two were new.
DeBrusk – who recently reiterated to Boston Hockey Now that he wants to sign a contract extension with the Bruins – has been playing his best hockey of the season lately. He has seven goals and seven assists in his last 16 games and has become a multi-faceted weapon for Bruins head coach Jim Montgomery, who recently said his recent play is the ‘best version’ of DeBrusk that he’s seen since becoming head coach of the Bruins prior to last season.
Poitras returned from a shoulder injury a week ago after missing four games thanks to a shoulder injury suffered in the Bruins’ 4-3 overtime loss to the Coyotes on Jan. 9. The 19-year-old rookie center has five goals and ten assists in 33 games.
Forbort also came back for that 9-4 win over the Montreal Canadiens on Jan. 20. The rugged, 6-foot-4, 219-pound defenseman had missed 21 games with an undisclosed injury.
Here’s what the lineup looked like at the opening faceoff on Saturday:
Forwards
Brad Marchand-Charlie Coyle-Trent Frederic
James van Riemsdyk-Pavel Zacha-David Pastrnak
Jesper Boqvist-Morgan Geekie-Danton Heinen
Jakub Lauko-Patrick Brown-Oskar Steen
Defensemen
Matt Grzelcyk-Charlie McAvoy
Hampus Lindholm-Brandon Carlo
Derek Forbort-Kevin Shattenkirk
Goalies
Linus Ullmark
Jeremy Swayman
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