It’s been easy to forget about Anton Blidh when it comes to the Bruins’ forward equation, simply because we haven’t seen much of him recently.
We’ll see him Wednesday night against the Flyers, though, as he’ll be back in the Bruins’ lineup for the first time in nearly a full year as the latest forward to get a look in the team’s banged-up forward group.
Blidh has played just 11 games over the last year and a half -- not 11 NHL games, but 11 games total. The 25-year-old left wing suffered a shoulder injury last preseason that required surgery and cost him the first three-plus months of the season.
He returned in January, playing four games for AHL Providence before getting called up. He played seven games in a fourth-line role for Boston and certainly held his own before getting bumped down the depth chart just before the pause in March.
Blidh got invited to the return-to-play camp over the summer, but wound up getting cut and didn’t travel to the Toronto bubble with the team.
Because of that, it was easy to view Blidh as nothing more than deep depth heading into this season, a notion that was only compounded when he got a late start after not being cleared for the beginning of training camp.
As it turns out, the Bruins have needed every bit of their depth up front. Jake DeBrusk, Ondrej Kase and Jack Studnicka all remain out at least for Wednesday night’s game. Karson Kuhlman and Par Lindholm have both gotten into games recently, but neither has done anything to claim a stranglehold on a job.
Enter Blidh. He knows what he’s in the lineup to do, and he’s excited to finally get a chance after such a long layoff since his last game action.
“Physicality and skating and bring the puck to the net,” Blidh said Wednesday. “Play simple hockey. It’s been a while since I played a game, so I think just find the energy and get the legs going.”
Blidh will play on the fourth line with Sean Kuraly and Anders Bjork, with Blidh playing left wing and Bjork flipping over to right wing.
“Blidher’s going to be a straight-line guy, help kill penalties, bring some energy” said coach Bruce Cassidy. “Doesn’t change the style of how the line has to play -- check well, probably see one of their offensive lines. With Anton, he’s missed some time. He’s been hurt, missed training camp unfortunately, so we didn’t get a good look at him. …We’ve always valued him. I had him in Providence years ago. He plays hard. He’s going to give you what he’s got.”
Here is the Bruins' projected lineup for Wednesday night:
Brad Marchand - Patrice Bergeron - David Pastrnak
Nick Ritchie - David Krejci - Craig Smith
Trent Frederic - Charlie Coyle - Chris Wagner
Anton Blidh - Sean Kuraly - Anders Bjork
Jeremy Lauzon - Charlie McAvoy
Connor Clifton - Brandon Carlo
Jakub Zboril - Kevan Miller
Tuukka Rask
Jaroslav Halak