With the Bruins having lost a couple of games in a row to the Penguins and Blue Jackets in pretty bad defensive fashion, they're going to shuffle the deck a little bit.
Defenseman Connor Clifton and forward Paul Carey are both getting called up to the NHL and are on a plane bound for Winnipeg ahead of the Thursday night tilt against the Jets, per a tweet from Providence Journal reporter Mark Divver. Carey has 14 goals and 20 points in 21 games for Providence since being traded back to the B’s organization and Clifton impressed Bruins officials with his poise, feistiness and positive impact when he was up with the NHL team earlier this season.
Clifton, 23, was a plus-2 with 11 penalty minutes in nine games with Boston earlier this season and the former Quinnipiac star certainly had some surprising swagger in his game as an unheralded prospect. Carey, a former Boston College standout, has 97 games of NHL experience (eight goals and 16 points) and will provide the B’s with a stopgap solution on the wing capable of bringing consistency, a bit of offense and poise in late regular-season games while the Bruins wait for Jake DeBrusk, Marcus Johansson and David Pastrnak to heal from their injuries.
The Bruins are missing three of their top-four wingers to injuries and those absences are beginning to show in the results for a team suddenly reeling a little bit after their epic point streak.
It remains to be seen if B’s players are getting sent back to Providence to make room for Carey and Clifton, but both Trent Frederic and Peter Cehlarik didn’t have any impact in a disappointing Tuesday night loss in Columbus.
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