Boston Bruins announce detrimental injury news as top defenseman is to miss significant time with injury

Ahead of Tuesday night in Seattle, Boston officially placed Lindholm on injured reserve and activated Jokiharju off injured reserve. It's a clean two-player paper move, but the impact is anything but clean.

The move follows what Marco Sturm said after Monday's practice, when he admitted Lindholm's injury is «not going to be a day-to-day thing.» Sturm also said Lindholm is «definitely going to be out for a little bit.»

The frustrating part is Lindholm looked fine Saturday in Vancouver, logging 22:47 and leading the Bruins in shifts. That's why this development feels like it came out of nowhere.

When Lindholm is missing, Boston loses a stabilizer who can survive tough matchups and still move the puck forward. He has three goals and at least 10 assists in 34 games, while averaging over 22 minutes a night.

The good news is Jokiharju is back in the mix, and Boston needed a right-shot option badly. He's got six assists in 25 games and can soak up steady minutes.

As a Bruins fan, this is the kind of «significant time» update that makes you start counting healthy defensemen in your head.

The standings don't care about excuses, and Boston enters the night at 22-18-2 in a crowded Atlantic chase. This road trip has gone well enough, but losing your top-pair glue guy can erase «well enough» in a hurry.

Now the next milestone is getting real clarity on what happened and how long «a little bit» actually means. Until then, Jokiharju's return has to be the start of the solution, not just a nice headline.

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