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Boston Bruins Marchand, Blidh Out For Winnipeg Game

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Boston Bruins

The Boston Bruins will be without left winger Brad Marchand for Saturday afternoon’s game vs. the Winnipeg Jets at the very least.

Marchand suffered an upper body injury in a dirty hit from behind into the corner courtesy of Capitals forward Garnet Hathaway in the second period of Thursday night’s home win over Washington. Hathaway was given a two-minute minor for interference on the play and Marchand will be out this weekend’s Saturday matinee.

It looked during the game like Marchand was favoring his right shoulder while attempting to grit through obvious pain on the bench after the hit.

Fourth line energy winger Anton Blidh will be out as well after getting blasted with a punishing, heavy hit from Tom Wilson in Thursday night’s physical contest as well.

“[Marchand and Blidh] both be out tomorrow. We’ll see how they are next week. We’ll probably have a better idea after a couple of days,” said Boston Bruins head coach Bruce Cassidy. “[The Capitals] play hard. There were a couple of hard hits last night. We were on the receiving end of a couple of them and we had a couple and they’re usually physical games against Washington.
“I don’t like the hits when it’s on the numbers and from behind and close to the boards. I don’t like them at any age and in any league. Unfortunately, Brad is going to miss a little bit of time and that’s the end of it from our end. I have no idea if the league will look at it or not, but we’re off to looking at Winnipeg.”

Nearly everyone agreed that the Blidh hit was a clean hockey hit even coming from a notorious on-ice predator like Wilson, and there has been no word from the NHL Department of Player Safety about a dangerous Hathaway hit on Marchand near the boards.

Steven Fogarty has been called up from the taxi squad and the Boston Bruins have some flexibility with Nick Foligno able to play both right wing or left wing based on the forward group’s needs. Jake DeBrusk will slot into Marchand’s spot on the top left wing with Patrice Bergeron and Craig Smith after scoring a goal and setting up the game-winner in Marchand’s spot on Thursday night.

“In terms of who replaces [Marchand] in the lineup it will be Jake first [skating 5-on-5 and PP] and then maybe Nick Foligno on the PK gets a little bit more of Brad’s minutes,” said Cassidy.

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