The Bruins activated center Elias Lindholm from injured reserve today, per the NHL’s media site. He’ll suit up for Team Sweden this afternoon in their preliminary-round opener against the host Italians at the Olympics.
While there is a trade moratorium during the Olympics and added restrictions on some transactions like waiver placements and reassignments, IR activations are not affected by the roster freeze. Since Boston entered the break with an open roster spot after reassigning Matthew Poitras to AHL Providence last week, there’s no corresponding transaction required.
Lindholm missed the final three games of Boston’s pre-Olympic schedule with an upper-body injury but was only ever listed as day-to-day. He missed a lengthier stretch back in November, sitting out 10 games, but that was because of a lower-body issue.
Now in the second season of the seven-year, $54.25MM commitment he landed from the B’s in free agency in 2024, Lindholm has fared much better in 2025-26 than in year one of the deal. Through 44 games, he tossed up 11 goals and 37 points. That works out to 0.84 points per game, his most productive rate since his career-best 42-goal, 82-point campaign with the Flames in 2021-22 that also saw him finish as the Selke Trophy runner-up.
Lindholm will begin his first time at the Olympics as Sweden’s second-line center between the Devils’ Jesper Bratt and the Red Wings’ Lucas Raymond, per Adam Johansson of Expressen. The well-regarded two-way pivot has been left off their top penalty kill units in favor of Joel Eriksson Ek, Adrian Kempe, Alexander Wennberg, and Pontus Holmberg, though, so his ice time will presumably end up closer to 15 minutes per game than 20.
Coming out of the break, there won’t be many pieces more important than Lindholm in guiding the Bruins to what would have been seen as an unexpected playoff berth last fall. He’s their third-most productive forward behind David Pastrňák and Morgan Geekie, and ranks second in time on ice per game behind the former.