"His thumb is 100 percent," coach Jim Montgomery said, indicating that the lower-body injury DeBrusk suffered in the Winter Classic remains the issue. "It's just we haven't seen the imaging yet that will say we're comfortable putting him back in…same thing with [Tomas] Nosek. We don't want to take the risk. We knew before we played Toronto…we got the last imaging, we knew he wasn't gonna be ready for Saturday.
"We're hoping for Tuesday but we're not gonna take any chances. If he's not ready for Nashville, we're not gonna go then either. We do think it should be by Nashville because I think it gets us to six weeks by that day. That's the thought but he's not there yet medically."
While DeBrusk's return may have to wait a bit longer than first anticipated, Patrice Bergeron was nevertheless excited to see his linemate back on the ice with the team on Friday.
"It's good to have him back. Last game we saw him, he was huge for us," Bergeron said of DeBrusk's two-goal outing at Fenway Park on Jan. 2. "He's been great for us all year. Seems like he keeps improving. It's always a positive when you see one of those guys you've been missing off quite some time to be back on the ice and skating with us."
Nosek, meanwhile, had to pause his rehab progression after his first solo skate. The centerman suffered a non-displaced fracture in his left foot on Jan. 19 against the Rangers and was originally set to be re-evaluated after four weeks.
"He skated one day. It didn't go well, so he's off ice," said Montgomery. "We're gonna wait a little bit."
