Krejci, Rask Amongst Six Bruins Back On Monday

The Boston Bruins got six of the nine players on the ‘unfit to play’ list back at practice Monday. Forwards David Krejci, Charlie Coyle, Nick Ritchie, and Sean Kuraly returned while defenseman Torey Krug was back on the blue line and goalie Tuukka Rask was back between the pipes. Forwards David Pastrnak, Ondrej Kase and Chris Wagner remained out and Charlie McAvoy also joined the ‘unfit to play’ list.

On Saturday, the Bruins had just over half the team at his disposal for what he was hoping would be his first full roster of this now week-old training camp and Phase 3.

“You’d like to be at full capacity the entire time, but I referenced the fact that we weren’t going to be,” Bruins General Manager Don Sweeney told the media in a Zoom call Sunday. “We were going to have situations that would arise, and we’d have to deal with the mental side of it. That goes for the coaches as well, to have the ability to be flexible and change what they had intended to do, because of what they have to do. They went out and had a great practice yesterday with the players that were available and did the things they wanted to accomplish in the course of that practice.

“We have players on the ice again today. We’ll hopefully have a full group tomorrow, but again, we have to wait until test results come back on a daily basis and see who’s available to practice and move forward. The best-laid plans sometimes go astray. You have to be able to adapt on the fly, and I think our coaches are also understanding that now. As we get closer to moving to the hub, we certainly would like to have our full group at some point in time to be able to practice at the level and execute at the level we expect them to.”

The agents for Pastrnak and Coyle conformed that their clients tested negative for COVID19 but no information has been confirmed for the other players who have missed practices.

Here’s what the lineup looked like Monday:

Forwards

Marchand – Bergeron – Bjork

DeBrusk – Krejci – Kuhlman

Kuraly – Coyle – Ritchie

Nordstrom – Lindholm – Senyshyn

Frederic – Studnicka – Carey

Defense

Chara – Zboril

Krug – Carlo

Grzelcyk – Lauzon

Moore – Clifton

Vaakanainen

Goalies

Rask

Halak

Vladar

Lagace