“Safely I can say that I’ll play the next game,” said a smiling David Krejci after returning to the lineup Wednesday night in Minnesota, a game that saw the Bruins break their three game losing streak thanks to a 3-2 overtime victory.

“Hallelujah,” said Bruins fans across the world.

It’s been a roller coaster of a season for the Bruins’ top center. Krejci has missed 20 of 32 games this season and surely has been missed on a team that’s struggling to put the puck in the net.

Wednesday marked the third time Krejci has tried to come back from an injury this season. The previous two times haven’t worked out too well, so hearing Krejci say he’s good to go Friday night when the Bruins head to Winnipeg to take on the Jets is a good thing for the Bruins.

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“For his first game back I thought he handled himself well,” head coach Claude Julien said of Krejci’s return.”He managed the puck well, you can see that he hasn’t been around the team during the hard times and the confidence that some of those guys are fighting through, but he was a confident player, made some good plays and I thought he had a good first night.”

Krejci’s return to the lineup may be more important than you think. Inserting No. 46 back into his familiar spot on the top line helps bring back stability to the Bruins’ lineup and helps put certain players back playing alongside guys they are comfortable playing with.

“In the situation we were in, that one player coming in seemed to balance a lot of things out with our lineup and as you mentioned, better suited lines I thought for the most part. And when we played well it showed and the rest of it is our game, our confidence,” added Julien.

When playing together, the trio of Chris Kelly, Carl Soderberg and Loui Eriksson has been one of the Bruins best. That was evident Wednesday night in Minnesota. Soderberg opened the scoring for the Bruins 5:06 into the first and Eriksson finished the scoring 1:30 into overtime. The line combined for five points and five shots on goal between the three.

“You got all the lines back and we played with Kelly before at the beginning of the season and I thought we played real well and it was nice to have him back on our line and I thought we created a lot of chances and it was nice to see Krejci back out there,” Eriksson said after tallying his sixth goal of the season.

Two more Bruins who are happy to see Krejci back are linemates Milan Lucic and Seth Griffith. In the 12 games that Krejci has played in, Lucic has three goals and four assists. In 20 games without Krejci, the power forward has three goals and five assists. In all 12 games Krejci has skated in, Griffith has seen first line minutes playing to the right of Lucic and Krejci.

Krejci had one shot on goal and was a minus-one in 18:22 of ice time Wednesday night. With Krejci back, the Bruins hope that helps things fall into place from an offensive standpoint. A lack of a true top-line right wing to play with Lucic and Krejci is still an issue, but Krejci’s return and more stable line combinations could be exactly what the Bruins need to start scoring more goals.

The Black and Gold currently rank 21st in the league in goals per game, averaging just 2.47 goals per contest. Krejci’s return can only be a good thing to provide even a small spark to the offense.