Bruins to activate pair of defensemen from LTIR

The Bruins will welcome back a pair of injured blueliners to their lineup on Saturday against Montreal.  The team announced that Brandon Carlo and Derek Forbort are both set to return with the latter being activated off LTIR.

Carlo has missed close to two weeks with an upper-body injury sustained earlier this month. The 27-year-old has played in 39 games so far this season, picking up two goals and eight assists.  Of course, Carlo isn’t known for his offensive output but rather for being a sound defensive defender; he’s logging 3:28 per game on the penalty kill — second-most on the Bruins — while blocking 71 shots.

The one player who is ahead of Carlo in shorthanded ATOI is Forbort who was averaging a few seconds more per night in that department before being injured back in early December. The 31-year-old played in 20 games before the injury, picking up four assists while logging a little over 18 minutes a night.  He’s in the final year of his contract and if Boston wants to try to add an impact player before the deadline, his $3M cap charge could be used as a potential offset.

Meanwhile, Boston also welcomes back two other injured players tonight who weren’t on injured reserve, goaltender Linus Ullmark and center Matthew Poitras.

Ullmark missed a little over a week after being injured in overtime against Arizona.  He has once again formed a high-end platoon with Jeremy Swayman this season, posting a 2.75 GAA with a .915 SV% in 21 games.  Poitras, meanwhile, has missed a little more than a week with a shoulder injury.  The 19-year-old has fared nicely in his first NHL season, notching 15 points in 30 games so far.

The Bruins still have some work to do before Carlo and Forbort can officially be activated.  They need to clear around $1M off their books to satisfy the cap-compliance portion of taking Forbort off LTIR.  They also need to send at least one player down as they only have one open roster spot at the moment with two players to activate.  They have a few more hours to figure out what those moves will be.