After skating without both in Friday’s ugly 6-2 loss to the Rangers, the Bruins hope to get at least one of David Pastrnak and Pavel Zacha back for Saturday’s home-ice tilt against the Red Wings. But if they do, it will not be Pastrnak, according to Bruins head coach Marco Sturm.
Speaking with the media following what was an optional morning skate for the Bruins, Sturm ruled Pastrnak out for the team’s head-to-head with Detroit.
Pastrnak was on the ice ahead of Friday’s loss to the Rangers, but ultimately was not well enough to play for the Bruins. Looking back at Pastrnak’s final shift on Wednesday night, Pastrnak seemed to have obvious discomfort on two separate acceleration attempts, the first coming in the defensive zone and a more obvious one coming with Pastrnak at the attacking blue line.
On Saturday, Sturm said he did not expect this to be a long-term ailment for Pastrnak, whose training camp actually began with some injury management due to knee tendonitis. Pastrnak has been a model of health, though, and actually had the 12th-longest active consecutive games played in the league prior to missing Friday’s contest, at 271 straight games played.
Zacha, meanwhile, says that he will be a game-time decision for the B’s on Saturday night. Unlike Pastrnak, it was not easy to find a particular moment where Zacha was limited, though Zacha did provide some insight on his own.
“It was, like, within the third faceoff of the game on Long Island,” Zacha, who added that it’s an upper-body injury, said. “It just started getting worse progressively, so I decided to take the day yesterday to try and get it better.”
And to the shock of no one, the B’s are dying to get at least one of them back.
“I’m not gonna lie, of course it hurts you,” Sturm admitted Saturday morning. “Not just five-on-five, but especially on the power play. You could see it. We were not really a threat like we’ve been all year long.”