Boston Bruins Smith Out (Upper Body); Lines & Notes vs. Penguins

PITTSBURGH, PA – The Boston Bruins are weathering more injuries as Craig Smith is the latest B’s player ruled out for Tuesday night’s game vs. the Penguins with an upper-body injury after not being on the ice for the morning skate at PPG Paints Arena.

Pregame in Pitt. pic.twitter.com/cXR0zYM6xQ

— Boston Bruins (@NHLBruins) November 1, 2022

It’s been a difficult start for the 33-year-old Smith with one goal and three points in seven games, along with just 10 shots on net while shuttling in and out of the forward lineup for the Black and Gold. Smith, who doesn’t kill penalties as a bottom-6 forward and hasn’t been given power play time as of late either while toggling between the third and fourth-line groups, has not been able to work his way into a consistent role, but was coming off a three-shot effort vs. Columbus that was one of his more active on the season.

“Craig Smith Is out, day-to-day,” said Jim Montgomery. “Upper body.”

Smith’s absence comes as the Boston Bruins should be ramping up efforts to make a salary cap-saving trade with Charlie McAvoy’s imminent return in the next few weeks, and BHN has sources pegging Smith and defenseman Mike Reilly as the top two candidates in a cap-saving trade in the coming weeks.

“I’m hearing the [Boston Bruins] name a lot more since Marchand returned last week,” one NHL executive told Boston Hockey Now Monday night. “They knew this was coming, but I’m not sure even they knew it would be this fast with both guys coming back way sooner than expected.”

Aside from Smith being out, it should be a pretty regular-looking lineup for the Boston Bruins with Brad Marchand officially back in as a full go moving forward and Linus Ullmark getting another start coming off a red-hot month of October where he went 6-0-0 for the Black and Gold.

Here’s the Boston Bruins’ projected lineup on Tuesday night against the Penguins:

Marchand-Bergeron-DeBrusk

Hall-Zacha-Pastrnak

Frederic-Coyle-Greer

Foligno-Nosek-Lauko

Lindholm-Carlo

Forbort-Clifton

Grzelcyk-Stralman

Ullmark