The Bruins will be welcoming back a key forward Saturday night against New Jersey as the team announced that winger Taylor Hall has been activated from LTIR. To create the cap space to do so, Boston transferred winger Nick Foligno and defenseman Derek Forbort on LTIR while assigning center Oskar Steen to AHL Providence.
Hall has been out for more than a month with a lower-body injury. The injury occurred just days before the trade deadline; his LTIR placement created the cap space for the Bruins to go add Tyler Bertuzzi from Detroit to further deepen their roster. Hall isn’t the Hart Trophy-winning player he once was, but the 31-year-old has been a capable secondary scorer for the Bruins this season, picking up 16 goals and 20 assists in 58 games.
The placements of Foligno and Forbort on LTIR shouldn’t be any cause for concern. The team remains hopeful that Foligno will be available at some point in the first round, while Forbort had been ruled out for the rest of the season nearly three weeks ago and could be back at some point in the postseason. Neither player has suffered a setback, and these moves were strictly for cap purposes. There is no cap in the playoffs, so when Foligno and Forbort are able to return, they will be eligible to play.
As for Steen, he has been shuffled to and from the minors quite a bit recently; this is his third demotion in the last two weeks. The 25-year-old has played in three games with the big club this season, picking up a goal. Steen has spent most of the year with Providence, tallying 14 goals and 17 assists in 63 contests and is likely to be one of the first recall options should someone else get injured in the coming days.
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