Boston Bruins Grzelcyk Exits Loss, Bergeron Ruled Out This Weekend

BOSTON – As if the result wasn’t bad enough on Thursday night, Boston Bruins defenseman Matt Grzelcyk was lost to an upper body injury that forced him out of the Carolina blowout in the second period of the 6-0 defeat at TD Garden.

Grzelcyk got tangled awkwardly along the end boards behind the Boston net after a physical puck battle with Andrei Svechnikov, but eventually was able to skate off under his own power while clearly hunched over in pain.

Matt Grzelcyk was very slow to get up after this weird play, he went down the tunnel: pic.twitter.com/yrEqDieVae

— Blake Thorne (@_BlakeThorne) February 11, 2022

Boston Bruins head coach Bruce Cassidy termed it an upper body injury for the puck-moving defenseman and said his status was uncertain for this weekend’s road Saturday matinee against the Ottawa Senators.

Grzelcyk appeared to tweak something upper body in a game prior to the NHL All-Star break, so perhaps Thursday night was an aggravation of something that was already bothering the 5-foot-9, 170-pound defenseman.

“I don’t know how long. He didn’t return obviously. It wasn’t his head, obviously, but we’ll see where he’s at on [Friday] morning,” said Cassidy of Grzelcyk, who finished with three shot attempts, a hit and a giveaway in 12:23 of ice time

Patrice Bergeron (upper body) has been ruled out for this weekend’s game vs. the Senators and won’t make the trip with the team, but the hope is that he’ll be able to suit up next week when the B’s continue their road swing through New York.

“[Bergeron] is not traveling to Ottawa,” said Cassidy. “We come back, so I assume he’ll be traveling with us to New York next week but that’s getting ahead of ourselves a little bit.”

With the injured bodies, the Boston Bruins will continue to dig deep organizationally with players like Jack Studnicka and Tyler Lewington potentially getting into a depleted lineup that was totally dominated by the Carolina Hurricanes on Thursday night.