The Boston Bruins are playing Kevan Miller somewhat sparingly so that he can be full tilt when he's in.
Miller, unsurprisingly, has faced some hurdles this season as he plays the campaign on a knee that has been surgically repaired multiple times, which forced him to miss all of last season.
After dealing with an unrelated issue, cellulitis on his foot, which caused him to miss a few games, Miller will draw back into the lineup Friday night against the Buffalo Sabres. Bruins head coach Bruce Cassidy continues to plan on not using Miller in both games of back-to-backs, which is part of the reason why he didn't play Thursday, but he's not putting the 33-year-old on any sort of minutes restriction.
"Once the puck drops, he's going to play," Cassidy said in his pregame media availability over Zoom. "There's no 'Well, we're going to keep him at 18 minutes instead of 22.' It depends on the situation, it depends on time and score. ... That's how we're handling Kevan, but I expect him to play the next three games because there's days in between, and going forward until we hit another one of those back-to-backs or three in four where we might have to look at it."
How this impacts Miller for the playoffs remains to be seen, though it's unlikely the Bruins would have to play a back-to-back in the postseason. There were back-to-backs in the bubble, but they might not be forced to do that this year.
Miller is replacing Connor Clifton in the lineup against Buffalo. When Brandon Carlo is healthy, the Bruins would have Matt Grzelcyk and Charlie McAvoy together, then Carlo and Mike Reilly are the other lineup locks. After that, it's Miller, Clifton, Jeremy Lauzon, Jakub Zboril, Steven Kampfer and Jarred Tinordi fighting for the final two roles.
