The Bruins had well over 300 man-games lost to injury last season, more than double their total of 162 the year before when they failed to make the playoffs.
“You just have to play through [injuries] and go with other guys and
play with the guys that you have. Through the whole
season, you’re going to have times that you’re obviously going to be
missing players.”
When a team is playing as well as the Bruins are now, it’s hard to find cause for concern.
But when the injury bug hits, it can change a team’s fortune in a heartbeat. Count the B’s among those who seem prepared to weather such storms.
“You just have to play through [injuries] and go with other guys and play with the guys that you have,” said captain Zdeno Chara following a two-goal effort in Wednesday’s 7-4 win over Buffalo. “Through the whole season, you’re going to have times that you’re obviously going to be missing players.”
Prior to the rout of the Sabres — which gave the Bruins a 10-1-1 mark in their last 12 games — the team placed standout defenseman Andrew Ference on injured reserve with a broken right tibia and scratched high-scoring winger Marco Sturm with an upper body ailment.
No worries. All the Black and Gold did was erase an early two-goal deficit with five unanswered scores, getting great production from another one of coach Claude Julien’s restructured lines. For the tilt with Buffalo, Julien patched together a line of Chuck Kobasew — who missed 12 games earlier this season with a broken leg — David Krejci and rookie Blake Wheeler. The coach looked like a genius when the trio exploded for three goals and three assists in the comeback win.
“As far as I’m concerned the way our guys are playing it’s hard to establish who is ‘one,’ ‘two,’ ‘three,’ and ‘four,’” Julien said of the line changes. “We’re getting scoring from every line. What’s nice about it is that you can move guys around.”
Julien cited the loss of star center Patrice Bergeron early last season as a galvanizing force behind the current unit’s resiliency.
“There’s the belief in that room and it started last year when we lost Bergeron,” Julien said of the Boston locker room. “If we played together as a group we were able to overcome those things.”
Last season they overcame enough for a playoff berth. If the injuries mount back up this season, there may be a little more on the line.
