Bruins camp notebook: 7 lineup regulars join Pastrnak, Kase under ‘unfit’ designation, shorthanded B’s not behind schedule & more

Bruins fans looking for some relief — or the very least clarity — on the status of Boston’s missing skaters once again received more questions than answers Saturday afternoon at Warrior Ice Arena.

While news of David Pastrnak’s quarantine helped explain the absence of Boston’s top scorer for five of the first six days of Bruins’ “Return To Play” camp, Saturday saw a number of other regulars absent from the ice in Brighton — with Charlie Coyle, David Krejci, Torey Krug, Sean Kuraly, Tuukka Rask, Nick Ritchie and Chris Wagner joining Pastrnak and Ondrej Kase as missing skaters from Boston’s latest Phase 3 workout.

Following practice, Bruce Cassidy announced that all nine missing players were placed under the league’s wide-ranging (and vague) “unfit to participate” designation — meaning that their absence could be due to a myriad of reasons, with no additional clarity in terms of when they could return. 

As ominous as Boston’s attendance was on Saturday, Cassidy did harp on the fact that players under this “unfit” tab should not be assumed to be sidelined due to a positive test for COVID-19, as was feared for Pastrnak. Some measures could simply be precautionary or with a short time frame for a return. For example, Joakim Nordstrom, ruled out on Friday under the “unfit” label, was back on the ice Saturday with no restrictions. 

"We had no injuries to speak of," Cassidy said. "Unfit to play - the league has asked us to continue along that line for the respect of the privacy of the players. So that's what we'll do. There's always different reasons. There's the quarantine rules, there's waiting on test results, there's a number of different things that factor into this. It doesn't automatically assume that we have a positive test.

"We want to get to Toronto as healthy as possible. I guess that's how I would elaborate on that. We hope to have some of these players back (on Sunday). (Sunday) was a scheduled day off, so the group that was on today will not skate (Sunday). We're not gonna change that. If some guys missed and are cleared to skate, then we may go on (Sunday)."

Here are the participants from Saturday’s practice at Warrior:

Marchand – Bergeron – Bjork
DeBrusk – Studnicka – Kuhlman
Nordstrom – Lindholm – Senyshyn
Blidh – Frederic – Carey

Chara – McAvoy
Zboril – Carlo
Grzelcyk – Lauzon
Moore – Clifton
Vaakanainen

Halak
Vladar
Lagace

Bruins push back full scrimmage

With so many NHL regulars out of commission for Saturday’s practice, Cassidy and his staff did have to reshuffle their plans when it comes to getting Boston up to speed before heading up to Toronto in a little over a week.

Saturday’s practice — held at 3 p.m. instead of their usual morning skates — was originally scheduled to be a full-squad scrimmage, allowing the club to both adjust to some of the unorthodox starting times awaiting them up in Toronto, while also allowing most of the club to face regular competition in a game-like setting. 

While Boston was able to organize a scrimmage with the bodies it had on Saturday, Cassidy did note that it things didn't exactly go according to plan — given the number of regulars that were unable to participate.

From a scheduling perspective, Cassidy believes Boston still isn't behind the eight-ball when it comes to being prepared by the time Phase 4 rolls around, especially if a couple of the absent skaters from Saturday are cleared to return by the club's next scheduled full practice on Monday.

"The week was set up, the first few days we were going to get back on the ice, get re-acclimated with practicing with some pace, talked about timing and execution, make sure we know from day one try to get a little bit better in that every day. We had a built-in day off early for recovery. We wanted to make sure that we didn't stress the guys too soon," Cassidy said of the team's plans for the first week of "Return To Play" camp. "I know they had a lot of time off, but still, to jam it all in quickly could be counterproductive. And then we want to start building in some competition drills and scrimmages and unfortunately we didn't get one today.

"We wanted basically a full-group scrimmage. So we did miss that. We're hoping Monday, if the numbers allow, we can do it then. So we're not that far behind. But I would say we've got a lot of what we wanted to do. We talked about systems in each zone, revisited those. Our guys are pretty good at that and play it well. But still, we're trying to rebuild our habits and make everything second nature. So that part of it I liked. I thought our conditioning was pretty good, for the most part. I think guys were able to get through practice at a decent pace. ... So yeah, we're one day behind, I think, for the scrimmage part, which I see as an easy chance to make up on Monday or Tuesday. We just need the numbers to do it." 

Scrimmage highlights

Even without many key contributors in the lineup, Saturday's scrimmage was still awfully competitive. Brad Marchand and John Moore exchanged a few chirps before a faceoff drill, while the former also got tied up in a "scrum" with Trent Frederic during a battle for a puck in front of the crease.

Early on in the scrimmage, Cassidy did have to lay into a few skaters, although he added that the different start time on Saturday might have been the culprit in what was a slow start on the ice.

"Some of it — the timing and execution wasn't as good as we liked, early on," Cassidy said. "Some of that could be a three o'clock practice. Don't forget it's the first one we've introduced, so it's not our typical starts with some guys (taking) a little longer to get going. ... But I thought after the first 10-12 minutes, I thought we were better. It was just a slow start. A little bit anticipated.

"You're down some numbers in the group, good players that keep practice moving as well. So that's part of it. The Providence guys don't necessarily know all the drills and the flow of it as much as our guys. So you have to allow for some of that. But I do believe we were off a little bit early on. And eventually, like I said, I liked our pace, and we got going."

The line of Marchand-Bergeron-Bjork impressed in the early going, tallying a pair of goals past Dan Vladar during back-to-back zone entries — with Marchand burying the second goal by way of a slack backhand attempt that went top-shelf against the B's netminder.

https://twitter.com/ConorRyan_93/status/1284576782772047873

Vladar did manage to redeem himself later on, denying Anton Blidh during a shootout exercise that closed out the full team activities on Saturday.