BOSTON – It might have been a costly loss for the Bruins beyond simply giving up the two points to the Anaheim Ducks.
The Bruins took a couple of injuries on the wing as both Anders Bjork and David Backes were forced out of Tuesday night’s 3-1 loss to the Anaheim Ducks for a team that was already missing both Brad Marchand and Noel Acciari. An unsuspecting Bjork took a Francois Beauchemin cross-check to the left arm/shoulder in the first period, and was forced out of the game after gingerly favoring his left arm as he skated off the ice.
Backes took a late, high hit from Nik Ritchie late in the third period that left him dazed on the ice, and the B’s power forward was similarly done for the rest of the night as he was led back to the Bruins dressing room by trainer Donnie DelNegro. Bruce Cassidy didn’t have much update on either player after the loss to the Ducks, but surmised that the B’s may have to dig deeper into their AHL depth given the missing bodies up front.
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“Bjork is [an] upper body [injury]. Backes I have nothing. I went in there…right now, I think he’s fine, but I don’t know. With Bjork [it’s] definitely upper body, and he’ll miss some time. I don’t know how much,” said Cassidy, who was asked about the lack of penalties on both hits that injured B’s players. “The Bjork didn’t seem like much. [I was] very surprised on the other one [that it wasn’t a penalty]. It was late. I can’t tell if it was high, but certainly late. The game looked fast at times tonight, and I thought there was a few that could’ve been called. But you know how that works.
“My guess is [Player Safety] will take a look at it, but it’s done now and not much you can do about it. We don’t have an extra forward right now unless Noel is ready to go Thursday. So [a Providence call-up] is something we’ll definitely have to look at in the morning, probably talk a little bit about it tonight if we get any further updates. We do have a healthy D – the seven D route we’ve tried [before], so that could be an option.”
Coupled with the big hit on Bjork from Leafs energy forward Matt Martin earlier this season, the speedy, skilled winger seems to be having some trouble shaking the injury bug amid the punishing physicality at the NHL level. For his part, Backes was spotted walking through the B’s dressing room postgame and didn’t seem to be having any residual issues from Ritchie’s questionable hit from the third period.
Boston Bruins
Certainly the Bruins were hoping they could get a little deeper into their stretch of 35 games in 69 days before bodies start dropping with injuries, but it’s looking like the Black and Gold are going to have a little more injury adversity hitting them in the near future.