David Pastrnak reveals painful injury he suffered in playoffs

The Boston Bruins are left picking up the pieces after their shocking exit in Round 1 of the 2023 Stanley Cup Playoffs at the hands of the Florida Panthers, who barely qualified for the postseason and were a whopping 43 points behind in the standings. 

And as you remember, the Bruins were unfortunately anything but healthy. Both Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci missed multiple games during the series, while it was also revealed that goaltender Linus Ullmark was dealing with a "debilitating" ailment that hindered his mobility. 

And now, it's been revealed that sniper forward David Pastrnak, who scored 61 goals during the regular season, was hurt right from the get-go. In his words, he suffered a shoulder injury that hampered him the rest of the way on literally the first shift of the series.

“Yeah, first game, first shift. It was just a shoulder injury,” Pastrnak confirmed earlier this week. 

“It sucks because all you want to do…It’s a sport where you can’t be healthy every time, but it’s definitely painful to not be able to give your one hundred percent and play my game for this year,” Pastrnak acknowledged. “Especially, after the year I had, and I’ve been healthy and I know what I can do when I’m healthy. It just sucks.”

Pastrnak caught some heat for not scoring in four straight games, though he was able to rebound into form by scoring twice in Game 6 and once in Game 7. But he and the rest of his teammates are headed for an early summer thanks to the result that almost nobody thought was even remotely possible. 

“I will say that Game 7, like I would’ve been one hundred percent in the second round for sure,” Pastrnak said. “That was one of those things right… You battle things in your head, obviously, but I remember Game 6… Obviously, it’s a lot of emotions and a lot of things running through your head, but I turned the page and got better in my head and was able to perform better.”