B’s Put Lucic On IR, Call Up Wozniewski & McQuaid

Milan Lucic is making his second stint on the injured-reserve list this season

It’s beginning to appear that anything involving Milan Lucic negatively offsets the balance of the hockey world in Boston. Visions of “2012″ are appearing all too real and riots have been forming outside the TD Garden as sales of “Lucic Crew” shirts plummet with the latest set of bad news to hit the Bruins left-winger.

Lucic, who has been out of action since November 25th, has been placed on injured reserve, putting his appearance for the 2010 Winter Classic in jeopardy.

As you can recall, Lucic took an awkward stumble onto his leg in a collision with Marek Zidlicky late in the third period of the B’s 2-1 shootout win over the Minnesota Wild. The spill originally looked to be much worse than it was (first thought among Boston fans was a torn-ACL,) but was revealed to be “just” a high-ankle sprain for the B’s top-line winger.

The trip to the injured-reserved list delivers another blow in what’s been a frustrating third season for the 6’4″ forward as injuries have limited Lucic to just ten games this season. After missing 14 games with a broken finger, Lucic had two goals in four games back from injury before being back in the press-box with his latest injury.

While Lucic has landed back on injured reserve, it may in fact not be a setback in his effort to return to action for the Bruins and was done in order for Boston to have the room to add players to the NHL roster.

To answer the Bruins’ (potential) injury-woes, Peter Chiarelli made the call for blue-liners Andy Wozniewski and Adam McQuaid to join Boston on what’s being deemed an “emergency basis”.

While emergency basis can often mean that the club wants an extra body (or bodies) to practice with during long-layoffs between games, it appears that the call-up’s for “Woz” and McQuaid are for injury purposes.

Dennis Wideman, who missed the third period in Monday night’s loss to the Flyers, has been rumored to be suffering from an upper-body injury as of late and may have officially aggravated the injury during Monday’s highly physical contest.

Also, Derek Morris has been rumored to be battling injuries for a thin Bruins blue-line and along with a Mark Recchi leg-injury that has yet to take the 41-year old out of the line-up, the Bruins likely needed some simple relief from Providence for a week or two.

Splitting captain duties in Providence, both McQuaid and Wozniewksi both bring big bodies to the Boston line-up with the occasional offensive output.

McQuaid has 10 points in 29 games this season for the P-Bruins along with 66 minutes in the sin-bin and isn’t afraid to stick up for his teammates and drop the mitts when necessary.

Providence captain Adam McQuaid received his first call-up to the NHL

The same can be said for Wozniewski, who has a higher point-total with 23 points (seven goals) in 29 games and last appeared in the NHL for the St. Louis Blues last season, playing in one game.

The call-up’s also are likely to kill any rumors of former Bruins defensemen Aaron Ward returning to club. Ward was placed on waivers yesterday by the Carolina Hurricanes, and has a -15 and six points in 31 games for the Hurricanes this season.

The Bruins will continue to practice in Wilmington this week before heading out to Chicago on Friday night to take on the red-hot Chicago Blackhawks. The Bruins went 2-0-0 against the ‘Hawks last year and look to rebound from their current two-game losing streak.

Follow me on Twitter!

Email me at TAndersonBruins@gmail.com

Have a question for me? Ask me on Formspring!