Bruins defenseman Hampus Lindholm not able to return for Tuesday night’s Game 5
The team will also be missing Charlie McAvoy for the second straight game due to COVID-19.
RALEIGH, N.C. — The Bruins will be without defenseman Hampus Lindholm for the third straight game on Tuesday night.
Lindholm, who suffered an upper-body injury in Game 2 of the first-round series against the Hurricanes after a brutal hit by Carolina’s Andrei Svechnikov, did not travel with the team for Game 5.
Lindholm has skated the last few days, and coach Bruce Cassidy is hopeful to have him back for Game 6 Thursday night in Boston.
The Bruins will also be missing top defenseman Charlie McAvoy for the second straight game. He entered COVID-19 protocol before Sunday afternoon’s Game 4.
With his top two defensemen on the mend, Cassidy turned to Matt Grzelcyk and Brandon Carlo on the first pairing, Derek Forbort and Connor Clifton on the second, and Mike Reilly and Josh Brown on the third.
“Obviously, we’d love to have those guys back in the lineup,” Grzelcyk said. “They make a huge difference for us. But we’ve always had that next-man-up mentality no matter what, and our backs have been kind of against the wall there, especially the last two games — we’ve got to win those games.
“We’re never going to have one guy that’s going to replace either of them. We’re going to do it by committee and I think guys really take a lot of pride in that and want to buckle down.”