When the Bruins took off Saturday night ahead of last weekend’s snowstorm, they surely knew the impending four-game road trip could be a bumpy one. They were playing the last two Stanley Cup winners, an upstart that’s tough to play against in their college rink and a team that’s made a coaching change.

But just halfway through the trip, the B’s have hit more pockets of turbulence than they bargained for. And it’s fair to wonder how long this team that has thus far defied logic by remaining among the elites of the NHL can remain in that stratosphere as they hit the halfway mark in Las Vegas on Thursday.

Brandon Carlo, who has filled his role more consistently than any Boston defenseman this year, was knocked out of the lineup with an upper body injury. He’s been termed day-to-day by coach Jim Montgomery. Keep your fingers crossed on that one.

The gut punch came on Tuesday in Arizona. Rookie center Matt Poitras, who had appeared well energized since coming back from the World Junior Championships, suffered what looked like a shoulder or arm injury. He did not return and there was no immediate prognosis.

But the big one came in the middle of overtime when goalie Linus Ullmark, one half of the tandem is chiefly responsible for Boston’s unexpectedly lofty position in the NHL standings, reached high with his glove for a shot and injured himself. Montgomery termed it a lower body injury and, again, did not have any kind of prognosis immediately after the 4-3 overtime loss to the Coyotes.

But whatever the injury is, it didn’t look like it was minor tweak. Ullmark needed players on both sides of him to guide him to the bench as he was not able to even take a meaningful stride on his own.

For Ullmark’s sake, here’s hoping appearances are deceiving. But it didn’t look good. The team was traveling on Wednesday and an update was not expected on Poitras or Ullmark until Thursday before the B’s take on the Golden Knights.

But it certainly feels like Jeremy Swayman is going to get a chance to be the man between the pipes for a while. Brandon Bussi is presumably the goalie due for a recall but, if this situation is handled the same way as the last time a goalie was injured, Swayman will get the bulk of the starts.

When Swayman was hurt in Pittsburgh on Nov. 1, 2022, he missed seven games and Ullmark played six of them, going 5-1 and allowing just nine total goals. It was a stretch of hockey that catapulted the B’s toward a record-breaking regular season and put Ullmark on the path toward the Vezina Trophy.

Now it looks like it will be Swayman’s turn, and there’s even more riding on this opportunity for the former Black Bear, as well for the B’s. Swayman will again be a restricted free agent with arbitration rights, the same rights he exercised last offseason to land on the one-year deal worth $3.475 million. Swayman stands to get a sizable raise regardless of how this next stretch plays out, but he could certainly pump his stock even more with a good run.

Of course, it will also behoove the B’s to take some looks at Bussi as well, depending on how much time Ullmark’s expected to miss. The days of goalies who play 65-70 games are dwindling, and the B’s have been at the forefront of the notion that it’s best to have a 1A-1B goalie tandem.

The 25-year-old Bussi, signed as an undrafted free agent out Western Michigan, had an excellent season in Providence last year, posting a 22-5-4 record and .924 save percentage and a 2.40 GAA. The numbers aren’t as good this season (10-6-3, .901, 2.94), but the 6-foot-4 athletic netminder’s play in preseason was strong.

These next chunk of games, however long they last, could help determine what direction GM Don Sweeney will go with his goaltending department in the summer, if not sooner.

But no matter who is net in the event that Ullmark misses a bulk of time, the skaters in front of him must support him better than they have in the first two games of this road trip. They’ve repeatedly coughed the puck up in their own end in Denver and Tempe and, in some respects, were fortunate to get points out of either of those games, though they did have their opportunities to win both.

If Carlo is indeed a short-term injury, then that will undoubtedly help. So could the return of Derek Forbort, whenever that may be. Out since Dec. 3 with a troublesome groin injury, he began skating last week, when Montgomery termed him still week-to-week. In his absence, the once top-ranked penalty kill has slowly slipped to fourth in the league.

But make no mistake. The Bruins have hit another gut-check portion of their schedule.