BRIGHTON, Mass. — Bruins power forward Brett Ritchie's on-again, off-again status is off again as he won’t be in the lineup vs. the Buffalo Sabres after “a flare-up” of an injury that previously kept him out of the lineup.
This will be the eighth game of the season that Ritchie has missed with a couple of different injuries, but this is related to an infection issue that took the 26-year-old out of the lineup for a handful of games. Ritchie had been out for two weeks prior to returning on Tuesday night against the Devils and had just one shot on goal in 13:15 of ice time in the win over New Jersey.
“He’s had a flare-up of a previous injury last night,” said Bruins head coach Bruce Cassidy. “So that will leave Lindholm with Bjork and Heinen. If Ritchie was healthy, he’d be on the wing and [Lindholm] would have to work his way into the lineup. Maybe he’d be the 13th or 14th forward mixed in.”
Ritchie has had pockets of decent play this season and got off to a good start when he scored in the season opener in Dallas, but the two goals and three points in 14 games played this season hasn’t been very impactful play from a guy the Bruins hoped would bring size, strength, physicality and ruggedness to their forward group.
Cassidy added that he “fully expects” Patrice Bergeron to play against the Sabres after missing the last two games with a lower body injury, and the further expectation is that Torey Krug will return this weekend against the Minnesota Wild, though he was skating in a no-contact jersey at Thursday’s run-through.
Here are the projected Bruins line combos and D-pairings vs. the Sabres based on Thursday’s morning skate:
Boston Bruins
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FORWARD LINES
| Brad Marchand | Patrice Bergeron | David Pastrnak |
| Jake DeBrusk | David Krejci | Charlie Coyle |
| Anders Bjork | Par Lindholm | Danton Heinen |
| Joakim Nordstrom | Sean Kuraly | Chris Wagner |
DEFENSIVE PAIRINGS
| Zdeno Chara | Charlie McAvoy |
| Matt Grzelcyk | Brandon Carlo |
| Urho Vaakanainen | Connor Clifton |
STARTING GOALIE
| Tuukka Rask |
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