BOSTON -- The Bruins lost one of their fourth line warriors in Thursday night’s win over the Dallas Stars, but it's unclear exactly how long Chris Wagner will be out after leaving the game with an upper-body injury.
Wagner exited in the second period of the Bruins' 4-3 win over the Stars after taking a roughing penalty for tackling Mattias Janmark, who went after Bruins forward David Krejci.
Janmark had bumped Krejci at the Dallas net after the B’s center had just exited the penalty box for a fight with Joe Pavelski, and Wagner quickly came to his aid by grabbing Janmark in a hug and throwing him down to the ice.
LIVE stream the Celtics all season and get the latest news and analysis on all of your teams from NBC Sports Boston by downloading the My Teams App.
Wagner tallied four hits and a couple of shot attempts in 7:52 of ice time before his exit.
“Upper body. He didn’t come back, obviously,” head coach Bruce Cassidy said of Wagner, who had goals in two of the last three games and seven shots on net during an active stretch. "We’ll have a better idea [on Friday] on how he feels when he comes in.”
The real shame of it all is that Wagner had been playing some of his best hockey of the season over the last month, jelling with Par Lindholm and Sean Kuraly into the kind of effective, energetic fourth line that was giving the B’s consistent minutes.
Boston Bruins
The good news is that Wagner was walking around the Bruins dressing room following the win and appeared to be OK, so the expectation is that he won’t be out very long due to injury.
If Wagner can’t play this weekend against the New York Islanders, then the expectation is that pot-stirring forward Anton Blidh would draw back into the lineup for the Black and Gold after sitting out the last couple of games.