David Krejci made it through a few games without incident after a lower-body injury kept him out of the season opener, but had to leave Monday afternoon's matinee midway through the game with something that's assumed to be related to the same injury.
Krejci exited the first period early and then made it through two more shifts in the second period before exiting entirely in Boston's 4-2 win over the Anaheim Ducks at TD Garden. There was no real update following the Bruins win, so it's unknown if the playmaking center is going to be able to suit up for Thursday night's big game against the Tampa Bay Lightning.
"Obviously, he left [the game]. He tried to play through it, but didn't come back. We'll see how he is. [Tuesday] is an off day, so Wednesday we'll have a better idea. How did we play through it? We had to use other people, obviously, more.
"We put [Joakim] Nordstrom in the middle in the third. We put [Chris] Wagner in the middle a couple of times, so good to have those guys that can move around. I tried to get Charlie Coyle extra minutes. Bergy's [Patrice Bergeron] always going to play his minutes, and I'm willing to bet that [Sean] Kuraly's minutes are up too. That's what happens. You've got to plug someone in there. I thought they did a good job going in there. We moved some people around and at the end of the day got through it, and hopefully Krech is good to go against Tampa."
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If Krejci can't play on Thursday then the Bruins would likely go with Par Lindholm centering the second line as he did in the first two games of the season. The biggest concern, obviously, is if the injury to Krejci is going to be something that's going to hamper him for a long period of time. Krejci has one assist in four games while averaging 17:01 of ice time since coming back from injury, and was just beginning to round into form after getting pretty much zero game action in the preseason.
Krejci played 81 games last season in an impressive show of good health, but it looks like all those games played last season might just be taking a toll on him this season already.
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