Bruins confirm key veteran will miss at least four weeks

The Bruins will be without a key depth veteran for the next little while as the team announced that center Tomas Nosek suffered a non-displaced fracture in his left foot on Thursday night. He will miss at least the next four weeks due to the injury and will be re-evaluated at that time.

The 30-year-old is in his second season with the Bruins after signing a two-year, $3.5M deal with them last summer. Nosek is one of their most-used penalty killers, ranking second to only Charlie Coyle in short-handed ice time among forwards. He has won over 58% of his faceoffs, good for second on the team behind Patrice Bergeron. Offensively, he has chipped in with three goals and five assists in 42 games, but his biggest contributions certainly come at the defensive end.

Notably, this injury dropped the Bruins down to 11 healthy forwards on their active roster, so a recall from AHL Providence was expected. While not announced by the team yet, they have recalled forward Joona Koppanen, per the AHL’s transactions log. While they have next to no cap space, they do have plenty of flexibility in LTIR with Jake DeBrusk and his $4M AAV. Nosek is eligible to be moved to LTIR as well considering how long he is set to miss, and Koppanen’s recall will trim that space.