Boston Bruins: Worrying List Of Injury Concerns Ahead Of First Round

The Boston Bruins have a worrying list of potential injury concerns heading into their First Round match-up with the Carolina Hurricanes.

Rules enforced as part of the NHL’s Return To Play plan mean that we can’t get the full picture with regards to the current Boston Bruins’ casualty list, but recent missed practices and such paint a rather bleak picture.

This may also be an overreaction and simply a result of the league announcing players as ‘unfit to participate’ as opposed to declaring they’re awaiting a negative COVID-19 test result or have injured their groin or wrist.

Whatever the concerns, the past fortnight has seen a list of ‘unfit to participate’ announcements for the Boston Bruins:

David Pastrnak

Leading regular-season goal scorer David Pastrnak was deemed unfit to participate in yesterday’s practice though is expected to be fit and ready for the Canes. Either way, it’s a concerning development with such a key player for the Bruins.

Tuukka Rask

Much like Pastrnak, Tuukka Rask was deemed unfit to participate in practice also. As much as Jaroslav Halak is a very able stand-in, the Bruins really won’t want to be starting the Stanley Cup Playoffs without their top shot stopper.

Ondrej Kase

Ondrej Kase finally saw some game action versus the Washington Capitals, but we’re all still wondering what exactly led to such a delay in getting back out there. If there’s a niggling injury, we should rightly be concerned about our supposed answer to the second-line right winger problem.

Patrice Bergeron

Our top line center missed a day for maintenance reasons; that could’ve been anything from a personal family issue to a niggling injury that he can’t quite shake. Luckily, it was over a week ago he missed that day and he seems to be fine, albeit not quite his usual elite self on the ice.

Brad Marchand

Brad Marchand is one of the few players that suffered some injury woes in the round-robin tournament that actually shared details with the media. He was declared as having a lower-body concern; another top-line injury concern ahead of the Canes, even if he was fighting fit versus Washington.

All in all, this isn’t the ideal way to head into the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

Of course, in a normal season, this would be the norm, but most teams right now are fit and healthy and looking good, unlike our slightly banged-up group.