A meaningless Saturday night bout with Buffalo’s Nicolas Deslauriers has come with a steep price for B’s defenseman Kevan Miller. Despite the even bout between the two, the 26-year-old Miller will be the one finding himself sidelined indefinitely with what the club has called a dislocated right shoulder.



A fixture on the club’s third pairing with Torey Krug, the California-born Miller has zero points through six games this season, but has recorded a plus-4 to go with seven hits and 10 blocked shots.

The frustration here simply has to come from the fact that the Black and Gold were really in no position to waste time generating ‘energy’ from a fight against the absolutely terrible Buffalo Sabres.

Despite the 16-shot opening frame from the Sabres, Buffalo is a team that the Bruins should be capable of handling. The archaic decision to try and stop the Sabres’ rush by way of a fight is downright silly given your advantage over them as a team (especially with Jhonas Enroth’s career figures against Boston), and now the Bruins are paying for it. You obviously understand the role Miller played, and while this one can be filed under the ‘it happens’ category, an already mixed-and-matched defensive corp takes another blow.

Miller’s not a guy you lean on for heavy minutes, but his loss only adds more shorthanded time to the club’s aging vets early into a year where the penalty-kill has been an undeniable struggle for the team.

Without Miller, the Bruins will give the defensive nod to Matt Bartkowski, a player that’s skated in just one game this year. Finishing with a minus-2 and losing his man on the game-winning goal against in a Columbus Day loss to the Colorado Avalanche, the Pennsylvania native has been coach Claude Julien’s obvious odd man out to begin the year, something he probably didn’t expect when he signed a one-year deal worth $1.25 million this past summer. You’d have to assume that Bartkowski would not be a fit with second-year NHLer Krug on that third pairing, and that they’ll drop Adam McQuaid back down to that third pairing, while Bartkowski will once again skate with Dennis Seidenberg.

If Bartkowski falters, the Bruins will likely give the call-up to Zach Trotman, a 6-foot-3 right-shooting defender (like Miller) that’s tallied two assists in four games for Providence this year.

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