'Day to day' Savard may return Thursday

By Joe Haggerty
CSNNE.com

PHILADELPHIA – It was a sparse crowd of Bruins on the ice for morning skate at the Wells Fargo Center as Marco Sturm, Marc Savard, Daniel Paille and Tuukka Rask worked out in a building that became a House of horrors for the B's last season.

Coach Claude Julien said Savard has improved to "day-to-day" at this point, and wouldn't say anything beyond ruling him out for tonight's grudge match against the Flyers.

Julien has several times mentioned over the last few days that "different things" or "different reasons" are still holding Savard back from a return to the active roster, but Savard says the "reasons" or "things" aren't medically-related.

So with some intrigue involved, there doesn't seem to be much in the way to hold him back from a return tomorrow night against the Lightning in Boston – or Saturday against the Maple Leafs at the latest.

"He's become almost a day-to-day situation with different reasons for holding him back," said Julien. "That decision will hopefully come sooner rather than later, and we're really looking forward to getting him back in our lineup."

Savard was pretty frank when asked if he felt like he was ready to play Thursday night against the Tampa Bay Lightning at TD Garden in front of the home fans

"Personally, yeah, I think I would," said Savard without hesitation. "But we still need to be patient and try and get through this without risking anything. If we all feel that tomorrow is the day then maybe . . . but if not, then I'll keep working hard."

"I felt excellent there today. I'm just waiting for the call. I've been cleared for everything, and it's been like that since [the testing] in Pittsburgh."

Does Savard have a preference of potentially debuting at home after his long battle with post-concussion syndromes, or perhaps heading out on the road to the Air Canada Centre Toronto Saturday as his comeback?

"Both would be great, obviously, and both are kind of home [for me] whether I'm playing in Boston or Toronto," said Savard. "Either way it would be nice, but obviously it'd be nice to be in front of our fans that have supported me all of this time."

Joe Haggerty can be reached at jhaggerty@comcastsportsnet.com. Follow Joe on Twitter at http://twitter.com/HackswithHaggs