Pastrnak, Frederic Exit Boston Bruins Win Early With Injuries

DETROIT – The Boston Bruins came out of Monday night’s 3-2 game in Columbus with the two points thanks to Jake DeBrusk’s overtime heroics, but they certainly appeared to pay a price for the victory. Trent Frederic was knocked out of the game in the second period with an upper body injury after a shoulder-to-shoulder hit from Columbus defenseman Jake Christiansen and David Pastrnak exited the game in the third period after getting tangled up with defenseman Vladislav Gabrikov directly off a face-off play.

David Pastrnak was not feeling great after this play. pic.twitter.com/ubMgvAxvjG

— Jamie Gatlin (@JamieGatlin17) April 5, 2022

Clearly, the Frederic issue was tied to the big contact he’d absorbed on a hit but it was less clear what happened with Pastrnak, who has appeared to be playing through some kind of nagging core issue in recent weeks.

Boston Bruins head coach Bruce Cassidy was not asked for updates on either player during Monday’s postgame availability, so an update will have to come in Detroit on Tuesday morning.

UPDATE: Both Frederic and Pastrnak are out of the Boston Bruins lineup for Tuesday night’s game vs. the Red Wings and will be reevaluated on Thursday ahead of the game in Tampa Bay vs. the Lightning.

The good news is that the Boston Bruins have extra bodies with Anton Blidh, Marc McLaughlin and Jack Studnicka traveling with the group, so there won’t need to be a call for the cavalry if the injuries become an issue. But Frederic had been playing the best hockey of his NHL career and was clearly frustrated throwing his stick leaving the bench area while knowing something was wrong.

Pastrnak was scoreless in his last two games, but has two goals and seven points in his last five games and has worked the chemistry with Taylor Hall and Erik Haula on an extremely effective second line. The Boston Bruins had already been toying with the idea of resting players at points during this four game road swing as preparation for the Stanley Cup playoffs come into play, but a couple of injuries to the forward group could make that a much more difficult thing to accomplish the rest of this week in Detroit, Tampa Bay and Washington.