Dealing with the injury bug comes with the territory in a sport as grueling as hockey, and the Bruins have not been exempt from such misfortunes in 2019-20.
Entering Thursday’s road matchup against the Florida Panthers, Boston had lost 245 man-games due to injury — with a still recovering Kevan Miller (kneecap fractures) pacing the unfortunate pack of battered Bruins.
Still, for all of lineup shuffling Bruce Cassidy and his staff have done over the last few seasons, most of Boston’s big guns on the roster haven’t been too worse for wear — especially down the final stretch of the regular season.
Unlike clubs such as Tampa Bay (Steven Stamkos), Toronto (Morgan Rielly, John Tavares and Mitch Marner) and Columbus (way too many to count) that have lost key cogs for extended stretches this season, the Bruins have lucked out as far not losing players like David Pastrnak (68 games played), Brad Marchand (68), Zdeno Chara (66), Charlie McAvoy (65), Patrice Bergeron (59) and David Krejci for weeks on end.
Boston will hope such good fortunes continue when they eventually get the word on Brandon Carlo Friday.
The fanfare that followed Boston’s 2-1 overtime victory over the Panthers was muted a tad by news of Carlo’s injury, as the B’s defenseman exited the game midway through the second period after taking an elbow to the face by Florida winger Evgenii Dadonov.
Dadonov, who was only whistled for a two-minute minor penalty for the infraction, dropped Carlo as both skaters pursued a puck in the corner — with Carlo dropping to the ice, holding his face.
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After getting tended to by the Bruins’ medical staff, Carlo was eventually able to skate off on his own, but did not return to the rest of the night — with Boston tabbing the reason for his absence as an upper-body injury.
“Better idea in the morning if it’s something more serious, like a concussion,” Cassidy told reporters in Florida of Carlo’s status. “But right now, we just don’t know.”
Boston’s surge since the bye week — winners of 14 of its last 17 contests — has given the club some breathing room ahead of the postseason, with the B’s holding a nine-point edge over the Lightning for first place in the Atlantic Division and the entire Eastern Conference.
But losing Carlo for any amount of time would be a big blow for a Bruins’ defense that has relinquished a league-low 2.38 goals per game so far this season.
Even if Carlo’s offensive numbers have spiked this season (19 points over 67 games) when compared to his usual output (a combined 16 points over 148 games in 2017-19), the 23-year-old skater’s primary value to this club remains tied to his ability to negate quality scoring chances around Tuukka Rask and Jaroslav Halak.
Carlo — who ranks second on the B’s in average shorthanded time on ice (3:07) and third in average total TOI (20:29) — has established himself as arguably Boston’s top shutdown option in its loaded D corps.
Among NHL defenseman that have logged at least 600 minutes of 5v5 ice time this year, Carlo ranks 10th overall in goals against per 60 minutes at 1.75, while his high-danger goals against per 60 rate of 0.87 also ranks 10th among that same pool of regular blueliners.
Sure, Boston will take those offensive contributions as well — although Carlo has also been granted favorable O-zone starts as a regular partner of Torey Krug — but few on Boston’s roster can replicate what Carlo brings when he’s using his 6-foot-5, 212-pound frame down low in Grade-A ice.
(For reference on Micah Blake McCurdy’s individual impact charts via Hockey Viz — On the offensive side of things, you’d want to see a player providing positive numbers — with the red blobs signifying where the team is generating a majority of their shots from whenever said player is on the ice. Defensively, negative numbers are a sign that a team is snuffing out opposing scoring chances whenever said player is on the ice. As such, the blue blobs represent where the opposition’s shots aren’t regularly coming from. As seen above, opponents are generating fewer than average shots right around Boston's net when Carlo has been on the ice).
Even if Carlo has been buoyed a bit by playing with an offensive dynamo like Krug, he still functions as one of Cassidy's more reliable shutdown options, especially when occasionally paired with his old partner in Zdeno Chara.
Of the 154 D pairings with at least 200 minutes of 5v5 TOI together, a Chara+Carlo duo ranks eighth overall in goals against per 60 minutes at 1.28 — pretty impressive stuff, considering just 25.89% of their faceoffs have come in the offensive zone. Cassidy may not match those two together too often, but in a close game — especially come the spring — having the option to slot those two defenders together is a major luxury for a head coach to have.
Ideally, Carlo's injury will not keep him out for long, even if the optics didn't look all that great on Thursday. For the time being, Boston does have the bodies to fill in if necessary. Connor Clifton is back from injury and has not appeared in a contest with Boston since Dec. 29, while John Moore has only appeared in three games since the start of February. Both regulars can shore up any vacancies on the B's blue line if Carlo is placed on the shelf for a couple of games.
But given the unpredictable waters both player and team most navigate when it comes to potential head injuries, the B's will be holding their breath as they await official word on the status of one of their top players on the blue line.