Boston Bruins forward David Backes is an injury doubt ahead of Monday’s clash with the Pittsburgh Penguins.
David Backes left the ice on Saturday night after an impact with Ottawa Senators winger, Scott Sabourin that saw the Sens player leave on a stretcher. The Boston Bruins winger hadn’t intentionally caused the impact that knocked-out the opposition player and left him with a fractured nose.
In fact, you could see the Boston Bruins forward was clearly shaken up by it all, visibly upset on the ice and seen tearful on the bench afterwards. When David Backes initially left the bench, heading to the locker room, the assumption was it that he was headed off to compose himself emotionally.
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Actually, it now appears it was a case of being injured himself, leaving for the rest of the game which the Boston Bruins went on to win 5-2.
The Boston Bruins announced David Backes’ injury as an upper-body injury; looking at footage of the incident with Sabourin, it’s either a head-to-head collision or a head-to-shoulder impact.
Based on that alone, you’d assume that David Backes is either suffering from some sort of shoulder issue or his history of concussions has led to another as a result of the high speed impact.
Thankfully, the Ottawa Senators player has movement in his extremities and appears to be on the road to recovery, though his nose will take rather a long time to recover, given it took the impact of his fall to the ice.
For David Backes, if this was indeed another concussion, you have to start wondering whether it’s all worth it. Is it worth the potential long-term negative impact of repeated blows to the head in that hunt for a Stanley Cup ring. While you don’t ever wish for any player to retire, you do question the sense these days in returning after numerous concussions.
Of course, if he did decide that he was done, if of course this was a concussion, it’d hugely benefit the Boston Bruins, who are currently stuck with his $6 million cap hit this season and next.
We hope, given the heart and determination he brings to the line-up, as well as the fact his emotional response on Saturday showing what a truly straight-up person he is, that David Backes is back in the line-up sooner rather than later.
While he’s not quite giving $6 million performances, he has actually played decently in the bottom-six thus far this season, simply getting his job done.
We don’t expect to see him against Pittsburgh, nor against the Canadiens, but provided this was merely a sore shoulder and nothing more sinister, we can hope for a return against Detroit or Philadelphia.