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The Boston Bruins will be on the hunt for a 2-0 series lead against the Florida Panthers at TD Garden on Wednesday night, and like Game 1, they'll have to do it without their captain Patrice Bergeron.
Bergeron is day-to-day with an upper-body injury and won't play in Game 2, B's coach Jim Montgomery confirmed.
“He's hard to keep [out of the lineup]. He's such a pro, he's such a competitor,” Montgomery said Wednesday, according to NHL.com. “Obviously, everybody knows he wants to be in, but the great thing about him is his ability to put his own personal feelings aside and still lead our group like he does. That speaks volumes about his leadership quality.”
Although Bergeron skated on his own prior to Boston's morning skate, he still isn't ready to return to the lineup and will miss his second straight game on Wednesday night.
Montgomery confirmed that the upper-body injury is an illness that has swept through the dressing room over the last week.
“And it's been probably 10 days to two weeks it's been going around,” Montgomery explained. “It's just, unfortunately, someone else gets it when someone else we thought is done with it…We've had guys, like Jakub Lauko lost eight pounds when he had it. It's that recovery strength.”
After considering retirement last offseason, Patrice Bergeron was fantastic this season, scoring 58 points in 78 games while continuing to play the elite defense that has earned him the title of one of the greatest defensive forwards in the history of the NHL.
The 37-year-old hasn't played since the first period of the team's final game of the regular season on Apr. 14, and will sit at least one more game on Wednesday night as the President's Trophy-winning Bruins try to open up a 2-0 series lead on the Florida Panthers.
