Big Blow for B's, Lindholm Out 'For Weeks'
The Bruins defenseman suffered a left leg injury after blocking a shot in the comeback win over the St. Louis Blues
The entire season has been a stress test of sorts for the Boston Bruins, but it’s about to reach an even more intense stage as attrition begins to hit their back end.
The Bruins lost Andrew Peeke last week to an upper body injury and this week Hampus Lindholm has gone down “for weeks” after getting hit in the upper left leg with a shot in Tuesday night’s comeback win over the St. Louis Blues. It’s a big blow for the Black and Gold as Lindholm has been arguably Boston’s most consistent D-man this season with three goals and seven points in 20:51 of ice time in 17 games along with a minus-4 rating.
“Hampus is a lower body injury and it’s going to be weeks,” said Jim Montgomery, when referencing the injury. So weeks is plural and don’t ask me next week, please.”
Certainly, he’s been their best as of late in terms of creating offense and playing an active role on the back end, and now he’s going to be out with an injury that pushed the Bruins to call up Jordan Oesterle from AHL Providence. The 32-year-old Oesterle has been solid with the P-Bruins this season with three goals and eight points in nine games, but he was only okay during training camp despite 371 games of NHL experience with Edmonton, Chicago, Arizona, Detroit and Calgary over the last 11 seasons.
“His skating and his mobility,” said Montgomery, when asked what stood out to him about Oesterle in the preseason. “His skating is impressive in every possible fashion, his edges, his pivots, his lateral movement at the offensive blue line, his retrievals…and then it’s his brain. He’s a really smart hockey player that is exceptional at breaking the puck out and transitioning pucks.”
One thing is for certain that Charlie McAvoy, Brandon Carlo, Nikita Zadorov and Mason Lohrei are going to need to step up their games, and Parker Wotherspoon will get a chance to really establish himself in the defensive rotation after playing well when inserted into the lineup this season.
“It always sucks watching guys get hurt, but we have some good organizational depth – which is great – and it’s always next man up,” said Charlie McAvoy to bostonbruins.com. “For us the objective is still the same and the expectation is still the same that we’re playing our best and getting the results.”
It’s going to be a massive test for the entire group going up against a high-powered Dallas Stars team on Thursday night, and it’s another roadblock thrown in front of a Bruins team that actually managed to cobble together a 4-1-1 record over their last six games after struggling mightily during the month of October.