Bruins' Patrice Bergeron and Zdeno Chara make strides in injury recovery, skating on their own

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BRIGHTON -- There hasn’t been a lot of news of any kind about injured Bruins stars Patrice Bergeron or Zdeno Chara recently, so any form of an update is a welcomed one. So it was good news that both Bergeron (rib and sternoclavicular injury) and Chara (left MCL sprain) are back to skating on their own as they recover from injuries suffered almost a month ago during a particularly rugged West Coast road trip.

Bergeron suffered his injury on Nov. 16 and it was announced as a four-week recovery period a few days later, so he’s still at least a week or two away from any practice activity. Chara suffered his knee injury on Nov. 14 with the same four-week timetable, so an update over the next week for the Bruins captain would be in keeping with the original timeline.

“[Chara] is skating and so is [Bergeron]. I don’t know when the next update is coming,” said Bruce Cassidy. “Maybe there’s something coming. I know they’re not skating with the team, so to say that they are close to playing I don’t think is accurate either.”

Meanwhile Bruins winger Jake DeBrusk is meeting with some specialists on Tuesday after missing last weekend’s two games vs. Toronto and Ottawa because he “was not feeling well.” Cassidy used the word “protocol” when discussing DeBrusk’s situation, which would lead one to believe that the youngster suffered a concussion and then possibly played through a handful of games after the fact before coming out of the lineup.

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It’s believed that DeBrusk potentially suffered the suspected concussion after taking a shot to the back of the head in the latter moments of the Nov. 26 loss to Toronto. Either way he’s being evaluated and it sure doesn’t sound like the team’s second-leading goal-scorer is going to be available to the Black and Gold anytime soon.    

“He’s seeing some specialists this afternoon. We’ll probably have a good idea coming out of that where he’s at,” said Cassidy. “Clearly he’s not playing [against the Coyotes] and he’s day-to-day from there. He gets diagnosed in some way, shape or form and he’ll go into that protocol and we’ll have a better idea on a timeline. As we’ve seen in the past, some of those come around quicker than others. So it’s better not to speculate.”

Tuukka Rask will get the start vs. the Coyotes on Wednesday night after being excellent in Sunday’s overtime win vs. the Senators. It’s the second time in the last couple of weeks that Rask has garnered consecutive starts while elevating his game in November and December.

Here are the projected Bruins line combos and D-pairings vs. the Coyotes based on Wednesday’s morning skate at Warrior Arena:

Marchand-Krejci-Pastrnak
Nordstrom-Cave-Backes
Donato-JFK-Heinen
Smith-Kuraly-Wagner

Krug-Carlo
Grzelcyk-McAvoy
Moore-Kampfer

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