Sweeney: Miller 'Doing OK But Still Early in Recovery'

BostonBruins.com - Bruins general manager Don Sweeney took to the podium on Monday to look back on his club's first-round victory over the Washington Capitals, as well as provide a number of updates on Boston's injury front.
Sweeney, speaking from Warrior Ice Arena on an off-day for the players, said that Kevan Miller was at the facility on Monday morning and is "doing OK" but "still early in the recovery phase" after taking a heavy and high hit from Washington's Dmitry Orlov in Game 4 at TD Garden. The blue liner left the contest and spent the night at a local hospital and did not play in the B's clinching Game 5 victory.
"We'll probably know as the week goes along how he progresses," said Sweeney. "He's obviously back home. He's in the facility. We'll check in. But it's still early in the process."

Boston's back end is already quite banged up with the Bruins also missing a trio of other blue liners, though Sweeney mentioned that he is hopeful both Jeremy Lauzon and Jakub Zboril are available for the start of Round 2. Veteran defenseman Steven Kampfer, meanwhile, will be unavailable moving forward after recently undergoing hand surgery.
"Again, we'll probably have a better understanding Wednesday on how [Lauzon and Zboril] continue to progress and get on the ice," said Sweeney. "Until they're in a practice with the main group, we won't really know. But hopefully we get a little extra time and they can move along in the healing process, then obviously getting up to full speed to become fully available for us."
The Bruins will have a lengthy break before the start of Round 2 against either the Pittsburgh Penguins or New York Islanders, whose series will last through at least Wednesday night. Sweeney noted that the downtime is crucial to recovery after a grueling final stretch of the regular season and a punishing first-round series against the Capitals.
"I think the overall principle was to get as much rest as possible for all facets, injury-wise," said Sweeney. "It's been an incredibly compressed schedule. We played a hell of a lot of games down the stretch to make up for time that we had missed through our own outbreak and other teams.
"We're going to use the rest and time to our advantage in that regard the next couple of days for players to be off the ice and away and spending some time with their families."

Boston did not practice on Monday and is scheduled to have Tuesday off as well, providing plenty of time for a reset, the benefits of which Sweeney believes will far outweigh the potential downside of a lengthy layoff.
"When the league decides when we play, we're going to be ready to play," said Sweeney. "And we'll do everything we can between now and then. We'll take the necessary couple of days…we'll talk and have a conversation about maybe giving it another day and being able to ramp it back up.
"It's such a challenging year from the compression overall of the schedule. I honestly believe the time we have right now will be advantageous to us, to have a little bit of a reset. I think if we can get in and stay healthy, we'll be ready to go for the next round, because it's going to be a hell of a challenge."
Sweeney also noted that the break will allow for many of the Bruins players to receive their second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. The league requires 85% of a team's traveling party to be fully vaccinated in order to relax restrictions, a benchmark coach Bruce Cassidy said on Sunday that the club had not yet reached.
"We're going to try and fill in a little bit of the gaps there with some of the players," said Sweeney. "We're tracking the numbers with the guys."

Kase Shutdown for Season

Sweeney also confirmed that forward Ondrej Kase has been shut down for the remainder of the season. The winger suffered a concussion on Jan. 16 in New Jersey - just the second game of the year - before finally returning for Boston's penultimate contest of the regular season. Kase made it through two periods before exiting with what was originally termed as more of a conditioning issue.

Building Back Up

The Bruins announced on Sunday night that, in accordance with state and city guidelines, TD Garden will be at "near full capacity" beginning on Saturday or whenever the second round opens on Causeway Street. Sweeney offered his appreciation to Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker, TD Garden President Amy Latimer, Bruins President Cam Neely, and the TD Garden staff for helping to get to this stage after a trying 15 months.
"We're fortunate that we're moving on to the next round and will be able to take advantage of what looks like as much full capacity as we can within the protocols and what the league will mandate," said Sweeney. "And we need it. The players have gone through tremendous challenges over the course of a year and a half and missing the excitement, having the energy of an incredible fanbase. And they persevered. It's incredible the amount of adversity each and every one of those guys have to go through.
"It's difficult. You've heard our players talk about it in pockets. To go out and perform at a level that we all, including the fans, expect them to do. It's not an easy task and hopefully now we can get more fans in our building to fully support them the way that we know all Bruins fans will do."
Sweeney also went on to say how proud he is off his club for their performance down the stretch and through the first round following a demanding and exhausting 56-game schedule that included a five-day COVID-related pause, a bevy of injuries to the back end, and countless sacrifices that were required to play during a pandemic.
"The amount of games that we were playing and the amount of injuries we were facing - we were fortunate that we added some players and some depth," said Sweeney. "They integrated very well and the leadership group and everyone was on the same page. You could tell right from the start of the playoffs that we were ready to play.
"I mean, we lose Game 1, you go to overtime in Game 2, Game 3. You know the emotional rollercoasters that exist when one shot can make it or break. Then you see the performances last night of Tuukka [Rask] and [Patrice Bergeron] in particular, [David Pastrnak] scores an incredible goal.
"We didn't play our best hockey game [on Sunday] night, but boy oh boy, the guys that were penalty killing - everybody played their roles and did what they needed to do to get a win. We were led by some great performing individual performances. But I think team overall the team has trended in the right direction."