It’s been a tough month for Bruins prospects.

First, the ‘load management’ of Matt Poitras intensified to multiple healthy scratches before the Bruins decided to loan him out to Team Canada for the 2024 World Juniors. Then 2021 first-round pick Fabian Lysell found himself called out — and in pretty strong fashion, all things considered — by P-Bruins head coach Ryan Mougenel.

And now comes the news that Cole Spicer has been deemed ‘academically ineligible’ for the remainder of the collegiate season for University of Minnesota-Duluth.

Via Scott Sandelin today, UMD will be without top line center Cole Spicer for the second half of the season. He’s academically ineligible.

UMD already lost Dominic James to injury at the start of the season.

Quick hit on Spicer, with more to come:https://t.co/U3vsy7I4Ak

— Matt Wellens (@mattwellens) December 26, 2023

A fourth-round pick (No. 117 overall) of the Bruins in 2022, Spicer’s sophomore season with the Bulldogs comes to a close after a 17-game run that featured five goals and nine points. The 19-year-old’s five goals ranked second among all UMD skaters, while his nine points were tied for the fifth-most on the team.

It’s an especially brutal development for Spicer’s development, too, as the center was showing serious signs of breaking through after spending the majority of his 2022-23 season at UMD in a fourth-line role, and with just three goals and six points in 32 games over that freshman season.

Spicer was Boston’s second pick of that 2022 class, which is obviously headlined by Poitras in the second round, and with Dans Locmelis (No. 119 overall), Frederic Brunet (No. 132 overall), Reid Dyck (No. 183 overall), and Jackson Edward (No. 200 overall) selected by the Bruins after their selection of the North Dakota-born Spicer.

Prior to this update from the UMD program, the 5-foot-10, 176-pounder Spicer had been Boston’s fourth-most productive prospect playing in the NCAA this season. The top spot on that front is occupied by 2021 fifth-round pick Oskar Jellvik and his nine goals and 17 points in 17 games for BC, with 2019 third-round pick Quinn Olson’s 14 points in 17 games for UMD behind Jellvik, and 2021 seventh-round pick Andre Gasseau’s 12 points in 17 games with the Eagles this season sandwiched between Olson and Spicer in the No. 3 spot.

Bruins return to action tonight in Buffalo

Up at the pro level, the Bruins will return to action at Buffalo's KeyBank Center on a four-game losing streak (0-2-2), and will try to avoid their first losing streak of five games since a Dec. 2019 stretch that saw them go 0-4-1.

Bruins head Jim Montgomery will continue to shuffle his deck up, too, with Patrick Brown slated to sub in for Oskar Steen on Boston's fourth line, while Kevin Shattenkirk will return to action in place of Ian Mitchell.

Jeremy Swayman will get the call in net for the Bruins.

The Sabres beat the Bruins by a 3-1 final on Dec. 7. And if they beat the Bruins again tonight, it will be their first time winning back-to-back games against the Bruins since they won two straight games in the extra frame (one in overtime and another in a shootout) during the 2010-11 season.

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