Broken ankle ends Carlo’s season
TAMPA — The Bruins finally announced the bad news on the Brandon Carlo injury that everyone was expecting.
The B’s revealed last night that Carlo sustained a fractured left ankle in the B’s 5-1 win against the Florida Panthers on Saturday. He will miss the rest of the regular season and the playoffs and have the ankle surgically repaired later this week. The expected recovery time is 3-4 months. The team’s medical staff had been waiting for the swelling to come down to determine a next step.
It is the second year in a row that Carlo’s been healthy for almost the entire season and had his playoffs snuffed out by an 11th-hour injury. Last season, he suffered a concussion on a check from Washington’s Alex Ovechkin, almost in the exact same spot on the Garden ice that the leg injury happened.
McAvoy returns
Meanwhile, the B’s got about as healthy as they’re going to be on the back end for the playoffs with the return of defenseman Charlie McAvoy.
McAvoy missed 15 games with an MCL sprain and was paired again last night with captain Zdeno Chara, who played his second game after missing nine with an upper-body injury.
McAvoy was thrilled to get going again.
“There’s excitement, for sure,” he said. “It’s been a while, and it feels like it’s been longer than it has. Four weeks of hard work and a lot of stuff behind the scenes to help me get back here.”
McAvoy suffered the injury on an innocuous looking play in a game against the Canadiens on March3. He has been on the ice for a little more than two weeks, and both he and the training staff made sure he was healthy enough to go.
“The precaution we took wasn’t based on rest, it was based on being 100 percent and being able to play, which is what we did,” McAvoy said. “We got to the point where it felt really good, and I passed all the tests, and here we are today.”
For the time being, at least, McAvoy will wear a brace on his knee.
“It’s different,” he said. “I’ve had about a week or so of skating and trying to get acclimated to the brace. There are a lot of guys on the team that use them, and I’m sure it’s the same way throughout the league. And every single one of them will tell you that it’s uncomfortable at first, and then you get used to it, and then it feels like it’s not even there. It’ll be a process, but for now, I am uncomfortable with it. But it doesn’t alter my skating in any way, so it feels good.”
Now his goal is not only to help the B’s clinch the top spot in the East, but even more important, to get his game to where it was when he got hurt.
“My goal when I got hurt was to get back for a few games before the playoffs so that I can sharpen up, and I’m going to take these games, this opportunity, to do so,” McAvoy said. “All these games matter a lot, so I’m going to get out there and try get back to where I left off and give the team the best chance to win.”
Nash remains iffy
The coach gave some promising news on the Rick Nash front, saying the power forward skated today for the first time. The team has not announced what kind of injury he has, but there are signs pointing to the injury being a concussion.
“We’ll see how that goes tomorrow with how the progress is,” Cassidy said.
Nash has not played since taking a high hit from the Lightning’s Cedric Paquette here on March 17.
Cave gets a shot
Center Colby Cave was brought up from Providence to fill in for the injured Tommy Wingels, who took a slash on the hand in Philadelphia on Sunday. Cassidy doesn’t expect it to be a long-term injury.
Cave played one NHL game this year, seeing 11:15 of ice time in the win over Winnipeg on Dec. 21.
“I thought it was all right,” said Cave of his NHL debut. “I just want to keep playing the same game I’ve been playing down in Providence and hopefully stick around for a while.” . . .
Neither Sean Kuraly (upper body) nor Riley Nash (40 stitches around his ear after getting hit by a shot) are with the team but did not skate yesterday.
On the Tampa Bay side, Steven Stamkos (lower body) missed last night’s game, but he’s expected back for the playoffs.