BOSTON — Chris Wagner arguably was the most pleasant of all the Boston Bruins’ pleasant surprises during the regular season, but he’s faded considerably in the postseason.
The bottom-six forward has played in seven of the Bruins’ 11 postseason games thus far, most recently serving as a healthy scratch in Games 3 and 4 of Boston’s conference semifinal against the Columbus Blue Jackets. When everyone has been healthy, it’s essentially been Wagner, David Backes and Karson Kuhlman jockeying for one, sometimes two spots.
Noel Acciari (undisclosed injury) was not on the ice for Saturday’s morning skate ahead of Game 5 at TD Garden, and Bruins head coach Bruce Cassidy indicated that he would be a game-time decision. Should Acciari be unable to go, Wagner would slot into his place on the fourth line opposite Joakim Nordstrom with Sean Kuraly between them.
It likely hasn’t been easy for Cassidy to scratch Wagner, who provided a 12-7-19 line in the regular season in addition to sound defensive play. But Saturday morning, Cassidy explained why the 27-year-old sometimes has been the odd man out.
“Kuhlman brought more pace, I thought, than those guys we talked about — Backs, Wags,” Cassidy said, via a team-provided transcript. “I think they’ve played their best hockey with a Kuraly, Nordy kind of look. Now that they’re all healthy, they all can’t play on the same line, obviously. We inserted Backs the other night, did a good job, got more involved as the game went on, lot of penalty kills, so he had to sit for a bit. Wagner, we expect to go out and he’s always physical, so he’s going to compete on pucks, secondary penalty kill. Haven’t seen a lot of offense out of him. He got hot in the regular season; we hope he can pitch in there, be a little bit harder on pucks in the O-zone. I think, with that line, that’s his comfort level with those guys. Sean’s very good at that, so he’s good at finding the front of the net, so hopefully that kind of comfort and chemistry he’s had will help him out.”
Wagner is pretty good at throwing his body around, and given how physical of a game Columbus plays, that could come in handy. So though Wagner has underwhelmed this postseason, it’s hardly a colossal step back for the Bruins if Acciari is out.
