BRIGHTON, Mass. — It would appear that Kevan Miller has suffered another setback of some kind in his attempted return from multiple kneecap injuries.
Bruce Cassidy confirmed that the 32-year-old Miller had “a procedure” within the last couple of weeks to promote healing in his knee after it appeared that he’d been nearing a return to the lineup last month. It was unclear whether it was the same kind of PRP (platelete-rich plasma) injection that Patrice Bergeron underwent over the summer to help his troublesome groin heal up more quickly, but it hasn’t allowed Miller to return to the ice with the rest of his Bruins teammates as of late.
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Miller was not out on the practice ice on Monday morning at Warrior Ice Arena even as Karson Kuhlman and Anton Blidh returned to skate on their own, and is out indefinitely after having played a grand total of two games since last March while dealing with a couple of kneecap injuries.
“It’s a good question. I don’t have an update. He had a procedure done that would require a little bit of time [to recover],” said Cassidy. “By now I thought he’d be back in the mix, but he’s not. We were away for a bit [on the road] so it was kind of out of sight, out of mind a little bit. We’ll do our best to get an update on his progress because he should have been back by now.”
It seems pretty clear that there must have been some kind of a setback with Miller if he required a procedure in the first place, and now his absence from the practice ice isn’t an encouraging sign either.
It continues to be a tough start to the year for Miller, who's in the final year of his contract and just hoping to regain the health to play considering he was once ahead of John Moore in terms of a timeline to play this season.
Boston Bruins
Now Moore is playing games for the Bruins and Miller remains off the ice with knee injuries that have kept him sidelined for eight months at a time when the Bruins could use his physical, bruising presence in the lineup.
Here are the line combos and D-pairings for the Bruins at practice as they ready for a showdown with Los Angeles on Tuesday night at TD Garden:
FORWARD LINES
| Brad Marchand | Patrice Bergeron | David Pastrnak |
| Jake DeBrusk | David Krejci | Charlie Coyle |
| Anders Bjork | Sean Kuraly | Danton Heinen |
| Joakim Nordstrom | Chris Wagner | David Backes |
DEFENSIVE PAIRINGS
| Zdeno Chara | Charlie McAvoy |
| Torey Krug | Brandon Carlo |
| John Moore | Matt Grzelcyk |
STARTING GOALIE
| Tuukka Rask |