Following his team's practice at Warrior Ice Arena on Sunday afternoon, Boston Bruins GM Don Sweeney met with the media. It wasn't going to be a great one in terms of news for fans between injuries and the team's spot in the standings with the trade deadline just 12 days away.
Sweeney appeared to be a GM who all but admitted that he's waving the white flag on his team's season after a 3-2 overtime loss on Saturday night to the Anaheim Ducks at home in the first game in two weeks following the 4 Nations Face-Off. Honestly, the playoffs are a dream this season for the Black and Gold with a roster that is simply not good enough to finish in the top eight in the Eastern Conference.
Even if they do get in, the roster is severely flawed and they are a sweep waiting to happen against the top teams in the conference. To compound matters, Sweeney began his press conference with some bad injury news.
Don Sweeney drops bad injury news at a bad time for the Bruins
Injuries have been an issue this season for the Bruins. In November, they lost defenseman Hampus Lindholm to an injury in a game against the St. Louis Blues when he blocked a shot killing a penalty. He hasn't been in a game since and he likely won't be again this year. Sweeney said that his left-shot defenseman will undergo another surgery on his knee this week and with only seven weeks left, it makes little sense to rush him back.
“He had a significant knee injury, he fractured his patella, had surgery. There was no real definitive timeline and we didn’t want to peg a timeline on it because of the complexity of the injury,” said Sweeney. “He’s going to have a follow-up next week to remove a little bit of the hardware because he created a little bit of irritation as he was going through the rehab. The healing process has gone long, and gone well and he’ll have no setbacks moving forward. That being said, it’s going to take more time for him to heal naturally and we just don’t want to put a timeline on when he’ll be back to 100 percent.”
The other injury news was about defenseman Charlie McAvoy who was injured against Team Finland 10 days in the 4 Nations Face-Off. He was hit hard into the post by Joel Armia and appeared the suffer a shoulder injury. He was in the lineup two nights later against Team Canada and was the best defenseman for Team USA, even laying a heavy hit on Edmonton Oilers star Connor McDavid.
After Team USA landed in Boston after the first two games in Montreal for their game last Monday night against Team Sweden, it was reported that McAvoy was admitted to Massachusetts General Hospital before the game for an infection. As it turns out, the Bruins would announce the following day, not Team USA, that McAvoy was going to miss the Championship Game last Thursday night, won by Team Canada, 3-2, in overtime.
At the time, it was odd that Boston, not Team USA, announced that McAvoy was going to miss the final against Team Canada. It likely meant that they were not happy with the way the Team USA trainers and doctors, who were from the Minnesota Wild, handled things. Sunday, Sweeney said there was no timetable to his top defenseman's return, if at all in 2024-25.
When pressed with questions about McAvoy's injury and how it was handled, Sweeney didn't want to go down that road and you can't blame him. If Sweeney is going to move some players at the deadline on March 7 as it sounds like, they will miss the postseason and there is no need to rush McAvoy back until he's fully healed.
As if the Bruins were climbing a mountain that they will not get to the top of, the injury news dropped about McAvoy and Lindholm is forcing the front office to go in another direction at the trade deadline. It's the worst possible time for injury news to be dropped about two fo the top blueliners for the Black and Gold. It sums up 2024-25 for the Boston Bruins.