Casey Mittelstadt limped to the Bruins bench in the third period against the Minnesota Wild tonight and was being looked at, according to Jack Studley.
The Bruins have given no update yet. Studley reported that the center stayed on the bench.
Conor Ryan also saw Mittelstadt hurting on the bench, so the report is not a one-off.
Nothing has been said about the nature of the injury or whether he will be back out there tonight. The game is still going, with the third period winding down.
That makes the timing awkward for Marco Sturm. Mittelstadt is a big piece of the third line, centering Elias Lindholm and Marat Khusnutdinov, and the Bruins are playing from behind with the clock running.
If Mittelstadt can't go, the lines get rearranged on the fly. Sturm would have to find a center in the middle of a push.
Why Mittelstadt's health matters to the Bruins right now
Mittelstadt has 7 goals and 5 assists for 12 points in 19 games, and he carries a +12 rating. Few Bruins have a better one.
He was also coming off a two-goal night against Montreal on Thursday, and both of those goals came off Lindholm in the 5-2 loss. NESN noted he has points in 7 of his last 10 games.
Ryan wrote that Mittelstadt's skating has noticeably improved this season. That has shown up on the ice, and it's what makes losing him even for a stretch so costly.
Earlier tonight he took a roughing minor for putting a hand up in Kirill Kaprizov's face, and a beat writer called him a "noted pugilist". Whether anything from that sequence matters here, nobody has said, and we won't guess.
The Bruins host the Kings on Tuesday, so any absence would show up quickly. For now, all eyes are on whether Mittelstadt gets back on the ice before the final horn.
An update will follow as soon as the team says something.
More to come.
This article was written with the help of artificial intelligence, based on public reports and official sources.
If Mittelstadt misses time, who should center the Bruins' third line?
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