BRIGHTON, Mass. — The Bruins will be without one of their top defense pairings while playing one of the hottest teams in the NHL.
Both Brandon Carlo and Torey Krug will be out for Tuesday night’s game against the Philadelphia Flyers with upper body injuries. Carlo is assumed to have a concussion after he was elbowed in the head by Evgenii Dadonov last week and Krug suffered an injury after an awkward tumble into the boards in last weekend’s loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning.
“[Clifton] will go in. Carlo and Krug are both out with upper body injuries. Krug went into the boards awkwardly with [Alex] Killorn and it’s a residual effect from that,” said Cassidy. “They are both day-to-day. Carlo skated this morning but won’t play tomorrow. We’ll target Friday or the weekend for him.”
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.
The good news is that Carlo skated on his own ahead of Monday morning’s practice at Warrior Ice Arena and there’s a possibility he could return later in the week against the Buffalo Sabres. There was no update on a timetable for Krug at this point.
With Carlo and Krug out, John Moore will remain in the lineup after playing on Saturday night in place of Carlo and Connor Clifton will get into his first game action in months after sitting out with an upper body injury. Clifton was taken off the injured reserve list over the weekend and did play some games for Providence on a conditioning assignment weeks ago, but hasn’t played in an NHL game since first suffering the injury on Dec 29.
Needless to say he’s excited to get back into the lineup.
“It’s been a while,” said Clifton. “I’m pretty excited. Obviously it’s been a long wait. I know it’s not going to be perfect, but I’m pretty fresh so I’m going to keep my legs moving. You keep it simple and limit the mistakes.”
Here’s the projected Bruins line combos and D-pairings against the Flyers based on Monday’s practice:
Boston Bruins
PROJECTED LINES
| Brad Marchand | Patrice Bergeron | David Pastrnak |
| Nick Ritchie | David Krejci | Ondrej Kase |
| Sean Kuraly | Charlie Coyle | Jake DeBrusk |
| Joakim Nordstrom | Par Lindholm | Chris Wagner |
DEFENSIVE PAIRINGS
| Zdeno Chara | Charlie McAvoy |
| John Moore | Connor Clifton |
| Matt Grzelcyk | Jeremy Lauzon |
STARTING GOALIE
| Tuukka Rask |