BOSTON – There are few details or specifics at this point, but Torey Krug was knocked out of Saturday’s loss to the Buffalo Sabres midway through the third period.
The puck-moving defenseman played his last shift with about eight minutes to go in the first period in the 6-3 loss to the Buffalo Sabres, and never returned to the bench with just five shifts and 5:03 of ice time in the game. There was no update on Krug from Claude Julien following Boston’s 6-3 loss where the Bruins blew a third period lead while surrendering five unanswered goals in the final 10 minutes of the game.
The loss of Krug really put a lot of pressure on Zdeno Chara and Dennis Seidenberg respectively with 26:18 and 27:05 of ice time for the aging D-men duo, and that forced five man defensemen rotation might have caught up with the Bruins in the third period. It was a Kevan Miller icing call that opened up the floodgates with Ryan O’Reilly scoring the goal on the ensuing offense zone face-off for Buffalo, and then the Chara-Kevan Miller pairing was on the ice for both the game-tying and go-ahead goal for Buffalo.
“An unforced error and an icing, you know, should have never been icing and then, you know, a blind back pass there just inside the blue line with a 3-2 lead,” said Claude Julien, who was referencing Loui Eriksson with the ‘blind back pass’ postgame comment. “You’re shooting yourselves in the foot, so that’s what we did tonight.”
The only discernible thing that could have been a hint to Krug’s injury was Buffalo defenseman Josh Gorges catching Torey Krug in the face with a high stick, which was at the very end of the B’s defenseman’s last shift on the ice for the evening. If the puck-moving and power play maestro is missing for any period of time, the Bruins will be in pretty big trouble among an already strained D-men corps.