Hall Cleared For Practice with Bruins, ‘On Track To Play’

BRIGHTON, MA – The Boston Bruins have been a bit coy about Taylor Hall’s potential availability for opening night after a preseason upper body injury, but it looks like the left winger may just push his way into the opener.

“What I’m finding out is how tough he is, and I guess his pain tolerance is really high,” said Boston Bruins head coach Jim Montgomery, of Hall a couple of days ago as he pushed his way into day-to-day status when the B’s thought it might be a week-to-week kind of injury. “He’s pushing it. He doesn’t want it to be week-to-week. We’re just monitoring it right now…there’s a little bit of hope that he can be back sooner than week-to-week.”

Hall practiced on Monday as the left wing with Patrice Bergeron and Jake DeBrusk after ditching the no-contact jersey and could give Jim Montgomery a wealth of forward options to choose from.

“I feel good. I’m on track to play Wednesday,” said Hall, following practice. “It was an injury that was pretty painful at the start, but then it got better really quickly. If this happens in the middle of the season I don’t know if I miss one game, maybe zero [games],”

“I feel good. On track to play on Wednesday.” — Taylor Hall pic.twitter.com/Do41oxUBpy

— Boston Bruins (@NHLBruins) October 10, 2022

Nick Foligno, Chris Wagner and Mike Reilly were all also present at practice on Monday after the trio was placed on waivers over the weekend, ostensibly to see if any teams might bite on their contracts while giving Boston some salary cap relief. Otherwise, it was a big group at practice on Monday with the team’s plan to fly out to Washington DC early, practice on the road Tuesday and get ready for Wednesday’s road opener against the Capitals at Capital One Arena.

Here are the line combos and defense pairings at Monday’s practice with Anton Stralman skating with the group while still on a veteran tryout agreement with the Black and Gold with Matt Grzelcyk nearing a return:

Hall-Bergeron-DeBrusk

Zacha-Krejci-Pastrnak

Greer-Coyle-Smith

Foligno-Nosek-Lauko

Frederic-Studnicka-Wagner

Lindholm-Carlo

Forbort-Zboril

Reilly-Clifton

Grzelcyk-Stralman

Swayman

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