A return to practice for the Bruins on Wednesday came with an emergency recall, with goaltender Michael DiPietro recalled from Providence.

The emergency conditions? The Bruins don’t have any goalies available.

With both Joonas Korpisalo and Jeremy Swayman still in Milan representing their countries as quarterfinals play gets underway, the Bruins needed to make a call down to the P-Bruins for a goaltender at practice. If this is entire practice sounds familiar, it is worth noting that the Bruins summoned DiPietro up from Providence around this time last year when they needed a practice goaltender during their first practices back during the 4 Nations Face-Off break.

Given that the Bruins are off until next Thursday, which will give Korpisalo and/or Swayman more than enough time to get back to Boston and back with the Bruins, it seems unlikely that DiPietro’s emergency conditions will extend beyond any practice reps with the NHL club.

But DiPietro does remain one of the more interesting cases in the organization, especially with the 26-year-old in the midst of another stellar year in the minors.

Through 28 games this season, DiPietro has posted a 21-5-0 record, along with a league-leading .942 save percentage and 1.64 goals against average. And with his 21 wins also tops in the AHL, DiPietro is currently paced to be a ‘Triple Crown’ winner of sorts in the AHL crease. This, of course, is after a 2024-25 season that earned DiPietro nods as the Aldege “Baz” Bastien Memorial Award winner, awarded annually to the goalie deemed to be the top AHL netminder.

But finding a pocket to get DiPietro an NHL look outside of the preseason has been a difficult challenge for Don Sweeney and the Bruins. The Bruins opted to stick with a then-struggling Korpisalo through the holiday break back in December, and his game took off shortly after Boston’s return to play.

Bringing DiPietro up and sending Korpisalo to the press box — even if it’s just to get a ‘look’ at what DiPietro can do — could risk ‘losing’ Korpisalo. The Bruins do seem to value him too much to do that to him. It could also put the Bruins in a spot where they would maybe have to carry three goalies on their roster, as teams could and would claim DiPietro off waivers if he had a strong showing.

If DiPietro is on an emergency recall, though, and if the emergency conditions are indeed real (such as a goalie coming back from the Olympics with an injury or facing travel delays), DiPietro could make an NHL appearance for the Black and Gold and report back to the AHL without having to go through waivers.

In the meantime, though, the ’emergency’ in goal is simply at practice.