Boston Bruins’ Nosek Out A Month With Leg Fracture

The Boston Bruins will be without their fourth line center for a while as they announced that Tomas Nosek will miss roughly a month with a non-displaced fracture in his left foot. Nosek suffered the injury during Boston’s 3-1 win over the New York Rangers on Thursday night at Madison Square Garden while totaling three blocked shots in 13:18 of ice time.

Per the Boston Bruins press release, Nosek will be reevaluated in four weeks after rest, healing and rehab from the injury.

The 30-year-old Nosek has three goals and eight points in 42 games this season but had been moved off center lately as an upper body injury was keeping him from taking faceoffs over the last couple of weeks. With that in mind, one would expect that this could mean either a longer look at Joona Koppanen as a fourth line center possibility as he’s been up and down from the AHL over the last few weeks, or perhaps a look at another P-Bruins forward like Marc McLaughlin or Chris Wagner as Nosek would be moved to long term injured reserve.

Koppanen centered Nick Foligno and AJ Greer at Saturday’s practice at Warrior Ice Arena, so it certainly appears that the 6-foot-5 Finnish center is going to get the first crack at fourth line center after getting a few games under his belt.

“I thought his first game was better than his second,” said Boston Bruins head coach Montgomery. “I thought with his second there’s areas where – or things that happened in the game where he’s going to learn and get better from.

“I mean, it’s the NHL. You’re going to sometimes be in situations where you’re going to say, ‘Next time, I’m going to be more aggressive or next time I’m going to do this. But he didn’t hurt us at all. He helped us win that game. And then I think today in practice is the best I’ve seen him look.”

On the good news injury front, stay-at-home defenseman Brandon Carlo did practice with the Boston Bruins after he was forced to exit Thursday night’s win over the Rangers after blocking a shot with his left foot.