It was a busy morning for the Boston Bruins, who announced a handful of roster moves ahead of Tuesday night’s game against the Tampa Bay Lightning.
Here’s a list of the transactions, with a breakdown of what it all means below:
-Forward Matt Poitras and defenseman Mike Callahan have been called up from AHL Providence.
-Defenseman Charlie McAvoy and forward Mark Kastelic have been place on injured reserve.
-Defenseman Hampus Lindholm has been moved to long-term injured reserve.
Let’s work backwards. Moving Lindholm to LTIR may seem alarming at first glance, but it’s not. The move is retroactive to Nov. 12, so Lindholm can still be activated whenever he is ready to return from his knee injury. Lindholm has been skating on his own, and there has not been any setback. There is still no timetable for his return, but the next step will be practicing with the team.
The reason why Lindholm wasn’t on LTIR already was simply that the Bruins didn’t need the cap space. Teams don’t want to use LTIR unless they need to because they will not accrue daily cap space if they’re using LTIR. The Bruins need to use LTIR now because they have too many injuries and now need the cap space to make call-ups.
McAvoy is probably the actual biggest news item here. Bruins interim head coach Joe Sacco said that the team’s No. 1 defenseman has been dealing with a “nagging injury” that got to a point where they decided to hold him out for the rest of the week. McAvoy will be re-evaluated after Saturday’s game against Ottawa. Sacco did not specify what the injury is, but we’ll just note that McAvoy had been spotted recently with some sort of brace on his hand/wrist.
Kastelic has been out since suffering an injury during a fight at the end of Thursday’s game against the Lightning. He took a crosscheck to the chin and also hit his head on the ice as he fell. His move to IR is retroactive to Jan. 9, so in theory he could play Saturday if he’s cleared by then. Regular injured reserve requires a player to miss at least seven days.
As for the call-ups, Poitras is of course the one that many fans have been waiting for. The 20-year-old center made the Bruins out of training camp for the second year in a row, but got sent down to Providence in mid-November after recording four points (1 goal, 3 assists) in 14 games. In Providence, Poitras had 20 points (8 goals, 12 assists) in 23 games. After a bit of a slow start there, he had 17 points in his last 16 games.
Poitras centered the third line between Oliver Wahlstrom and Trent Frederic at morning skate and is expected to line up there Tuesday night as well. Meeting with the media after morning skate, Poitras said he feels much better about his game now than when he got sent down, and that he “found the love for the game again.”
Callahan, 25, would be making his NHL debut if he gets into a game. The Franklin, Mass. native and Providence College alum was not at Tuesday’s morning skate because he was a late call-up, but Sacco said he would be an option to play Tuesday night.
And finally, Charlie Coyle was also not at morning skate. Sacco said he is dealing with an illness and will be a game-time decision for Tuesday night. Sacco said Poitras will be in the lineup regardless of Coyle’s status, so someone else would be the healthy scratch. Jeremy Swayman gets the start in net against the Lightning.
Here’s how the Bruins lined up at morning skate: