BRIGHTON, Mass – Both Rick Nash and Sean Kuraly won’t play tonight in the regular season finale against the Florida Panthers with the top spot in the Eastern Conference on the line, but both forwards should be ready to go for Game 1 of the Stanley Cup playoffs on Thursday night. Nash (concussion) and Kuraly (upper body) skated again on Sunday morning at Warrior Ice Arena while the rest of the Bruins team went through an off-ice video session, but it didn’t make sense to drop them into a high intensity game with so much on the line ahead of the playoffs.
Instead they will be joined on the ice by Riley Nash (upper body) on Monday and get in at least one, maybe two, real days of practice leading up to the postseason opener, where they should be fully prepared to play.
“There wasn’t enough practice time and that’s fine. We want him first and foremost to be ready for the playoffs. We thought we might be able to squeeze in a [regular season] game, but it’s not going to happen. I am [confident Nash will be ready for Game 1]…now I am after [Nash and Kuraly] skated with us yesterday and today, and they’ll get Tuesday and Wednesday [practices]. Getting through that will be the next test, but they seem to be progressing very well,” said Bruce Cassidy. “Riley Nash, I think, is going to skate tomorrow, and we’ll see how he feels, get some contact and then go from there. If Rick Nash is ready to go on Thursday then he’ll go back in there [at right wing with David Krejci] and that will be our plan.”
Nash confirmed it was a concussion suffered in the game against Tampa after taking a Cedric Paquette forearm to the head, but one where the post-concussion symptoms didn’t really take hold until a day or two later. With the Bruins presumably taking a day off on Monday after the back-to-back games to close out the season, it’s expected that both Kuraly and Riley Nash will be joining with the rest of the team for what should be a full practice on Tuesday.
That would leave everybody outside of Brandon Carlo healthy and potentially ready for the postseason provided the B’s get through Sunday night’s tilt with Florida in one piece, a notion that spurred Bruce Cassidy to knock on wood for good luck while speaking with the media after Sunday morning’s video session.
Here are the projected Bruins line combos and D-pairing vs. Florida based on morning skate:
Boston Bruins
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Marchand-Bergeron-Pastrnak
DeBrusk-Krejci-Backes
Heinen-Donato-Gionta
Schaller-Wingels-Acciari
Chara-McAvoy
Krug-Miller
Grzelcyk-McQuaid
Rask