PHILADELPHIA – The Boston Bruins keep losing players to injury. They keep beating the Flyers, too.
Forward David Krejci will miss the rest of the playoffs after dislocating his right wrist in Game 3 of their Eastern Conference semifinal series. Marco Sturm was lost for the season with a right knee injury in Game 1, and defenseman Adam McQuaid is doubtful for Game 4.
About the only consolation for the growing list of injuries is the 3-0 lead Boston holds going into tonight’s game. Sweep the Flyers, and that’s more time for the Bruins to rest and work on possible new line combinations for the conference finals.
“Teams go through those situations. Sometimes it pays off because you’ve played through adversity and through the grind, and it makes you a stronger team,” Bruins Coach Claude Julien said Thursday.
Julien just hopes they can escape Philadelphia without additional injury. The Bruins are one win away from advancing to the Eastern finals for the first time since 1992.
“We just have to keep finding ways, and we have to continue to do that. We have to stay focused,” Bruins center Marc Savard said.
Savard missed 24 games during the regular season with a concussion. He wasn’t even around when the Bruins made their late-season run toward the postseason.
No one who watched the Bruins only months ago could have imagined they’d be five wins away from playing for the Stanley Cup. Boston lost 10 straight games in one stretch. The Bruins even lost 10 in a row at home.
“It was finding our identity as a team. I thought we struggled with that this year,” Julien said. “We didn’t have that identity that we had been looking for.
“At the end of the month, we somehow found a way to find our identity and it seems like it’s getting stronger. You just hope it keeps going that way.”
Julien has found the right mix down the stretch and into the postseason. He’ll have to keep mixing when he decides if Trent Whitfield or Brad Marchand will get the call to sub for Krejci in Game 4.
Krejci collided with Flyers captain Mike Richards just before Boston scored the go-ahead goal on Wednesday. Krejci had surgery to repair the wrist following the game.
He had four goals and four assists in nine postseason games after scoring 17 goals and 35 assists in 79 regular season games.
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