Boston Bruins’ Bergeron Was Playing Through Back Injury

BOSTON – When the hockey season has concluded, the truth comes out about the Boston Bruins players and their injury problems. After the Boston Bruins had shockingly fallen by a 4-3 score in OT in Game 7 to the Florida Panthers on Sunday night at TD Garden, Patrice Bergeron revealed that he played this first round series with a herniated disc in his back suffered at the end of the regular season.

The 37-year-old Bergeron wasn’t going to use it as an excuse for a performance that wasn’t up to par against the young and hungry Panthers, but he finished with one point and a minus-6 in three games while averaging barely over 12 minutes of ice time per game.

“I have a herniated disc in my back, so that’s why I missed the four games and tried to rush to come back,” said Bergeron. “Obviously it’s stiff, but it’s definitely not something to use as an excuse. It is what it is. Everybody is battling something in the playoffs, but it’s unfortunate the way it happened on a fluke play.”

Bergeron shot down a mention of offseason surgery as a possibility as any kind, and back issues are a new one for a player that’s persevered through groin problems, concussions and some elbow issues in his nearly 20-year NHL career. Perhaps he was more preoccupied with his season suddenly being over as he hugged it out with his Boston Bruins teammates on the ice, and a new round of questions popping up about his NHL playing future.

Patrice Bergeron says thank you and goodbye. pic.twitter.com/2Nz2fIxULs

— Michael Hurley (@michaelFhurley) May 1, 2023

It’s unfortunate timing for the Boston Bruins that Bergeron couldn’t really play at his level over the last three games, and that it also appeared Linus Ullmark and David Krejci were also banged up physically during the first-round playoff series against the Florida Panthers. Maybe pulling out a first round victory over Florida could have given the B’s a few days to heal everything up, but more likely it feels like the B’s were never going to be able to climb the mountain to hoist the Cup if so many players were already injured just a few weeks into the postseason.