Bruins to activate pair of defensemen from LTIR.

When the Bruins play Montreal on Saturday, two injured blueliners will be back in the starting lineup.The organization declared that Derek Forbort, who was activated off LTIR, and Brandon Carlo are scheduled to return.

Carlo’s upper-body ailment from earlier this month has kept him out of action for about two weeks. This season, the 27-year-old has participated in 39 games and recorded two goals and eight assists.Naturally, Carlo is more recognized for his strong defensive playmaking than for his offensive production; he leads the Bruins in penalty kill time at 3:28 a game and blocks 71 shots.

The one player who is ahead of Carlo in shorthanded ATOI is Forbort who was averaging a few seconds more per night in that department before being injured back in early December. The 31-year-old played in 20 games before the injury, picking up four assists while logging a little over 18 minutes a night.  He’s in the final year of his contract and if Boston wants to try to add an impact player before the deadline, his $3M cap charge could be used as a potential offset.

Meanwhile, Boston also welcomes back two other injured players tonight who weren’t on injured reserve, goaltender Linus Ullmark and center Matthew Poitras.

Ullmark missed a little over a week after being injured in overtime against Arizona.  He has once again formed a high-end platoon with Jeremy Swayman this season, posting a 2.75 GAA with a .915 SV% in 21 games.  Poitras, meanwhile, has missed a little more than a week with a shoulder injury.  The 19-year-old has fared nicely in his first NHL season, notching 15 points in 30 games so far.

Up until Carlo and Forbort are formally activated, the Bruins have some work to do.To satisfy the cap-compliance requirement and remove Forbort from LTIR, they must remove around $1 million from their books.Since they now only have one open roster place and two players to activate, they also need to send at least one player down.They will have a few more hours to determine the course of action.

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