Boston Bruins Bergeron Out With Injury ‘Involving His Head’

BRIGHTON, Mass – In what could amount to a very damaging loss for the Boston Bruins, captain Patrice Bergeron has been ruled out for Thursday night’s game against the Carolina Hurricanes with an upper body injury after tumbling backwards awkwardly into the boards.

Boston Bruins head coach Bruce Cassidy assumed it was the concussion spotter that pulled him from the game after he went shoulder, neck and head-first into the boards following a collision with Sidney Crosby and confirmed with the media on Wednesday post-practice that the injury is “involving his head.”

Patrice Bergeron down the tunnel pic.twitter.com/KEjm1uDvSO

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The 36-year-old Bergeron didn’t skate on Wednesday at all, won’t play on Thursday and everybody around the Boston Bruins will hope that a player with a concussion history makes a quick comeback from the latest brush with it.

“He’s got an upper body. He won’t be available [on Thursday],” said Cassidy. “It’s involving his head, so we have to be careful. This is a guy that has had head injuries in the past. We want to make sure everything checks out. He wants to make sure everything checks out. In the immediate term he won’t skate today or play tomorrow, and hopefully he’s in good shape for the next few days. But we’re going to take as much time as we need to do with this one.”

With Bergeron out of the lineup and Brad Marchand expected to be suspended for something in the neighborhood of five games for his incident with Penguins goaltender Tristan Jarry, the Boston Bruins are obviously going to be challenged with an undermanned lineup. Players like Taylor Hall will take it on themselves to do a little bit extra in a larger role while the No. 1 guys are out of the lineup for the time being.

“Not to give you the cliché that everybody needs to give a little bit more, but it’s true in a sense,” said Hall. “When you’re missing your captain and a player like [Marchand] it’s not as simple as everybody doing a little bit more. We’re going to miss those guys, there’s no doubt. So we all have to find a way to be the best version of ourselves and [do that] collectively as a team.”

Here are the top two lines from Wednesday’s practice at Warrior Ice Arena with Bergeron and Marchand unavailable for Thursday night:

Hall-Haula-Pastrnak

DeBrusk-Coyle-Smith