Sign up for the Today newsletter
Get everything you need to know to start your day, delivered right to your inbox every morning.
Bruins reveal injuries they were playing through during 2025-26 season
"Broken rib and a little puncture on the lungs. ... It was unfortunate, but part of the game.”
With the Bruins’ 2025-26 season coming to a close on Friday night, Boston’s full roster officially packed up its bags at Warrior Ice Arena on Sunday morning as part of the club’s annual breakup day in Brighton.
As is the case every spring, breakup day offers a chance for players to reveal the myriad of bumps, bruises, and other severe ailments that they played through during the grueling grind of an NHL season.
Here’s a look at what some of the Bruins players were fighting through this year:
Charlie McAvoy
Despite the frustration rooted in a first-round playoff exit, Charlie McAvoy acknowledged that some time off this summer will be welcomed — especially given the punishment he went through over the last few months.
Advertisement:
“Hopefully I’ll be a little bit more whole,” McAvoy said of his upcoming offseason procedures.
As expected, the Bruins defenseman is set to have plenty of dental work done this summer, fresh off a pair of incidents where McAvoy lost multiple chiclets.
On Nov. 15, 2025, McAvoy took a slapshot from Montreal’s Noah Dobson — fracturing his jaw and expelling several teeth in a gruesome injury.
McAvoy missed less than a month of game action despite having a metal plate inserted into his jaw and a liquid-only diet that saw him drop 20 pounds in a matter of weeks.
Advertisement:
McAvoy’s mouth took even more damage on March 10, when Kings forward Samuel Helenius drove him — face-first — into the glass. He lost even more teeth as a result of the collision.
Beyond that dental damage, McAvoy revealed on Sunday that he broke his right hand during Game 2 against the Buffalo Sabres — and will also undergo a few more MRIs to see if anything else needs to be corrected over the offseason.
McAvoy wore a small cast under his glove to try and conceal the injury over the final four games against Buffalo, which limited his ability to grip his stick.
Despite several injury setbacks, McAvoy said that he learned a lot this season from battling through adversity.
“It was a lot of firsts — a lot of things that hopefully don’t happen again,” McAvoy said. “I really do think that when I get a chance to just spend some time with my family and get a little bit further from this, I’ll realize that, everything that happened this year, I think there was some good to come out of it.”
“I just think that I became a really stronger person, off the ice, for my family, for myself, just sort of as an adult. I think we faced a lot this year, and we just handled it really well.”
Viktor Arvidsson
The Bruins missed Viktor Arvidsson’s speed and scoring punch over the final two games of their playoff series, with Boston holding the 33-year-old winger out of the lineup in Games 5 and 6.
Advertisement:
The reason for his absence?
“Broken rib and a little puncture on the lungs,” Arvidsson said. “So it was hard to kind of come back that quickly. It was unfortunate, but part of the game.”
Arvidsson, who logged less than four minutes of ice time after getting hit into the boards in the first period of Game 4, said that his injury limited his breathing and mobility. However, he added that he was trying to get back into the lineup for Game 7 had Boston won Friday and knotted the series up at 3-3.
“It’s just tough. You want to be out there, but at some point you just think about yourself and think about your family and stuff, and kind of go from there,” Arvidsson said of playing through the injury. “I don’t want to put myself in any danger, either.”
Nikita Zadorov
Nikita Zadorov drew plenty of headlines on Friday night when he revealed right after Boston’s season-ending loss that he suffered a torn MCL in Game 3 — playing the final three games of the series while on a compromised knee.
Despite the severity of that injury, Zadorov had some good news to share on Sunday regarding his offseason plans for his knee.
Advertisement:
“I don’t need surgery, I don’t think so,” the 6-foot-6 defenseman said. “I’m going to have a doctor’s appointment on Tuesday. I think it’s a PRP (platelet-rich plasma) injection and should heal on its own. I got a little lucky there.”
Zadorov, who also said he suffered an ankle injury during a game against Montreal in January, still logged over 20 minutes of ice time in both Games 5 and 6 against Buffalo despite his injured knee.
David Pastrnak
There were some concerns over David Pastrnak’s skating this season, starting in training camp when he missed the start of on-ice sessions due to tendinitis in his knee.
Speaking on Sunday, Boston’s star forward noted that he was hindered in November after suffering a groin tear that forced him to miss several games.
“I came back a little earlier, and battled mentally a lot with that as a player,” Pastrnak said. “Because, with the [skating] stride, I remembered that pain for a while when that happened. So I struggled with that a little bit.
“But I would say, for the last month, I was much better mentally with the skating, and more confident.”
Pastrnak, who scored three goals and seven points in six playoff games, said he felt healthy during the postseason against Buffalo.
Elias Lindholm
Elias Lindholm’s first two years in Boston have largely been marred by underperformance and injury. Despite playing a full 82 games in 2024-25, he was limited to 48 points, with a back injury suffered during the summer of 2024 forcing him to play catch-up after missing most of training camp and the preseason.
Advertisement:
That back injury once again sprouted up for the 31-year-old forward this season, as he needed an injection to try to alleviate the pain just before the start of the Olympic break. He also needed an injection in his back early on during the 2024-25 campaign.
“It was tough to kind of recover,” Lindholm said of returning from the Olympics and dealing with his back injury. “I think going over there, my body was not great — but [I] battled through, and then came back and kind of kept grinding. I couldn’t find the confidence or stuff like that to play my game.”
Lindholm — who was limited to 48 points over 69 games this season — still has another five years left on his contract with an average annual cap hit of $7.75 million.
Hampus Lindholm
The 2024-25 season was a lost year for Hampus Lindholm, who was limited to just 17 games after suffering a fractured kneecap in November 2024.
Lindholm ultimately played 67 games in 2025-26 with Boston, with the veteran blueliner noting that he did suffer a foot fracture during the winter that was more of a nagging injury than a severe setback.
“I think I missed like a couple of games after that. I’ve got to say, kudos to the staff and the equipment guys for helping me with my skates and stuff,” Lindholm said. “Luckily, I play a sport where you can kind of lock your foot in pretty good.
“So you can play with stuff like that when you get on the ice. It’s probably more annoying when you’re walking around outside. Elliot was a little disappointed at home — my dog. He didn’t get the long walks anymore. So that was probably the biggest downside with the injury, but it’s starting to feel better.”
Advertisement:
Lindholm said that, unlike last summer — when he was still limited in his workouts while rehabbing back from his knee surgeries — he shouldn’t have those same limitations this offseason.
Pavel Zacha
Zacha had a career year in 2025-26, scoring 30 goals and posting 65 total points over 78 games.
But, the 29-year-old forward went through his fair share of bumps and bruises.
A concussion suffered just before the Olympic break prevented the Czech product from representing his country during the Milano-Cortina Games, while he also missed a few games during the winter with a high ankle sprain.
“Nothing too serious that was limiting me too much,” Zacha said of his ankle injury. “Other than that, it was good.”
Be civil. Be kind.
Read our full community guidelines.To comment, please create a screen name in your profile
To comment, please verify your email address