Backes to return vs Lightning, Kuraly out

BRIGHTON, Mass – The Bruins will get at least one of their walking wounded back on Thursday night in a tremendously important divisional game against the Tampa Bay Lightning with David Backes getting back into the swing of things.

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The B’s power forward was injured by an errant skate blade cutting his right leg in the previous meeting against Tampa Bay in Florida and missed the last five games while a gash that took 18 stitches to close up healed properly. Backes made it through a couple of skates with a brand new pair of hockey pants to cut down on the chances of bacteria getting into the wound, and is now past the point of any infection danger as he readies to hop back in.

“It’s feeling better. They’re not worried about infection. I’ve got a new set of pants so they’re not worried about years’ worth of bacteria filtering into that thing,” said Backes. “So, I feel like we’ve done a job of waiting for [the wound] to close up and have mitigated against all that we can. Now we’ve got the green light, so let’s play. These are the games where if you’re medically cleared that you get in any way that you can.”

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It was good news all-around aside from Backes as well with Charlie McAvoy (sprained MCL), Zdeno Chara (upper body) and Jake DeBrusk (upper body) all returning to the practice ice at Warrior Ice Arena for the morning’s skate, and Rick Nash (upper body) also working out at the B’s facility while staying off the ice. McAvoy is still wearing a non-contact jersey while mixing it up with his teammates that means he’s still a bit away from a return, but it certainly looks like Chara and DeBrusk might be possibilities for this weekend’s action.

“When [Rick Nash] gets out on the ice we’ll probably be able to judge better whether he’s going to make it back before the playoffs,” said Bruce Cassidy. “But the other guys [Chara, McAvoy and DeBrusk] I suspect now that they’re skating [a return] could be Saturday or Sunday-ish.”

Matt Grzelcyk was also able to practice on Thursday despite taking a nasty boarding hit from Josh Morrissey in the shootout loss to the Winnipeg Jets on Tuesday night and will be a game-time decision for the Bruins with Tommy Cross called up to step in if the Charlestown native can’t play. Fourth line center Sean Kuraly (upper body) will be out for the Bruins after sustaining an upper-body injury in that heavy, physical game against Winnipeg.