Projo Bruins Blog

By MARK DIVVER
ASSISTANT SPORTS EDITOR

PROVIDENCE -- Byron Bitz won't be finishing the season in Providence after all.

Rob Murray, the coach of the Providence Bruins, said Wednesday morning that a rib injury that Bitz suffered during the Boston Bruins' playoff series with Carolina was more serious than originally thought.

"He was banged up a little bit, and I don't think they realized how bad he was,'' Murray said.

"He needed medical attention in order to play the last two games up in Boston . He would have had to continue doing that here. (Boston general manager) Peter (Chiarelli) told me and Bitzy told me his ribs were sore. They did more research into it (on Tuesday) and he was hurt more than he was letting on. They would prefer that he not play, rather than playing with this injury and continue to get shot up every game.

"Bitzy was happy to be here and willing to do it, but they don't want to jeopardize his future, and I don't blame them,'' Murray said.

Bitz was on the ice for the team's optional skate on Tuesday.

On the phone Tuesday afternoon, Bitz said he was looking forward to playing in Providence again, instead of going home for the summer. "I'd rather be playing. I'm excited to get back into it,'' he said.

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The news out of the Bears camp is that they hope to use their depth to grind down the Bruins this weekend.

"We've got to get it deep on them and punish them when they're out there," Hershey's Chris Bourque told Dan Sernoffsky of the Lebanon, Pa., Daily News, "because hopefully it will get them tired and wear them down. They've got a solid team but the more we punish them, the better it is for us."

Said coach Bob Woods: "We're gonna roll four lines. It's his (Providence coach Rob Murray) choice of what he wants to do. We're just gonna play and try to beat the guys we're playing against. That's all you can do."

The Bears had poor first periods in both of last weekend's game, and Woods is hoping things are different in Providence.

''I didn't like our starts in either game," Woods told Sernoffsky. "I think Game 2 was more cautious. Both teams, you've got two very good goaltenders, and everybody knows, you get that lead and it's a big part of what's gonna happen. The second game we were a little bit cautious. Once we got going, we got a lot of shots. It's gonna take a lot of shots to beat that guy (Providence goalie Tuukka Rask)."

Hershey captain Bryan Helmer points to Hershey's depth and the short turnaround between Sunday's game (7 p.m.) and Monday's (4 p.m.) could be an advantage. "It should," Helmer told Tim Leone of the Patriot-News of Harrisburg, Pa. "But if you look at their top two lines, they're pretty young. They've got a young team. We're hoping that they wear down, but their top two lines are pretty competitive.

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Woods tore into enforcer Kip Brennan for an open-ice hit in practice Tuesday that dropped Chris Bourque. "It was an open-ice hit that you don't like to see those type things against some of our guys,'' Woods reportedly said afterward. "I just wanted to make sure that he knew that wasn't permitted.''

Brennan and his Providence counterpart Jonathan Trembley don't figure to dress during this series.

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Providence's Rob Murray said that when he was nearly at the end of his playing career and was thinking about getting into coaching, he nearly took a job as a player/assistant coach with Bob Woods, who at the time was the head coach of the Mississippi Sea Wolves of the East Coast Hockey League.

While Murray was weighing the job offer, he got an offer to play one more year, with Springfield, and he took it. After that season, 2002-03, Murray retired as a player and took a job as Scott Gordon's assistant in Providence.

 Tags  Boston Bruins Byron Bitz Providence Bruins

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