On the Boston Bruins …
Joe Haggerty of CSNNE: Coach Bruce Cassidy said that they aren’t expecting to have Adam McQuaid (upper-body), Torey Krug (lower-body) or Brandon Carlo (upper-body) back in the lineup for Game 5 tonight.
Carlo is the closest of the three to returning.
“There are guys progressing certainly, but to say in 24 hours that you could have some people available? I would say no,” said Cassidy, who had Colin Miller, Tommy Cross, Matt Beleskey, Jimmy Hayes and Jakob Forsbacka Karlsson practicing at Warrior Ice Arena on Thursday morning. “Guys realize was another game that could have gone either way, and they just made one more play than us. Going forward we have a game where we need to be a little better in certain areas, and make that extra play. It’s the one game at a time stuff that we do around here; we’ve kind of had that mentality all year.”
On the St. Louis Blues …
Jeremy Rutherford of Tim Timmermann of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Paul Stastny was one of eight Blues on the ice for their optional skate yesterday. Stastny is getting close to being able to return to the lineup.
“It feels good,” said Stastny, who has been on the ice for about six days. “Every time I’ve been on the ice, I’ve felt more and more comfortable. I don’t know (about being available Saturday). We’ll see. To me, it’s more catching up to the speed, thinking at a high rate. The team practices we had two days ago, it was good. Then tomorrow’s team practice will be good and we’ll go from there. I never really put a date on when I want to return. For me, I’ve told the guys, it’s always been kind of day by day, and when I feel confident out there in myself and in my abilities to help the team anyway I can, I will.”
Coach Mike Yeo yesterday on Stastny’s status.
“He’s moving well, he’s progressing,” Yeo said. “I think what we’ll just say is let’s get him through a real good practice (Friday) and see how that goes.”
Stastny had blocked a Vladimir Tarasenko shot in the foot, but he may have also suffered another injury that may have been a bigger issue.
On the Ottawa Senators …
Bruce Garrioch of the Ottawa Citizen: Forward Tom Pyatt likely won’t be in the lineup tonight. Pyatt left Game 4 in the first period after taking a hit to the head from Bruins defenseman Kevan Miller. There was no penalty on the play and the NHL Department of Player Safety didn’t feel it deserved any supplementary discipline.
“He’ll be day-to-day. We’ll see the rest of the day how he’s feeling and we’ll re-assess (Friday),” said Boucher.
Defenseman Mark Borowiecki is day-to-day but he hasn’t started skating yet.
“Mark is day-to-day. He was going to be on the ice yesterday but (Ben) Harpur is buying us time, but we’ve delayed it and we’ll see what happens when we get home,” Boucher said.