Patrice Bergeron progressing from groin surgery, but will miss preseason trip to China

Patrice Bergeron is expected to miss the team’s preseason trip to China while he still recovers from groin surgery, but the Bruins center said he is still on track to be ready for the team’s season-opener against the Capitals Oct. 3.

Bergeron, who had surgery on his injured groin at the end of June, participated Friday in the Bruins second captains practice but is still not fully healthy.

“It’s good,” Bergeron said. “Starting to feel better on the ice now and increase the workload. Slowly, but surely, and feeling good.”



The Bruins are opening in the preseason in China when they play the Flames in Shenzhen. Another game will follow in Beijing four days later against Calgary. Half of the training camp roster will stay in the United States for preseason games against the Capitals.

After the Bruins were eliminated from the playoffs in the second round against the Lightning, Bergeron revealed the groin injury. The hope was that the injury would heal on its own, but it only hurt more when the 33-year-old resumed his workouts earlier in the summer.

“Hindsight is 20/20,” Bergeron said. “Of course when I look back I would've liked to do it right away. But after talking with the training staff and doctors, there was a chance it would go either way and unfortunately it stayed and got worse.”

For Bergeron, the focus now is to get healthy for the end of the preseason. He said he’d like to play in some games “at the tail-end of it before starting the season. That I guess is the game plan and we’ll see how it goes and play it week by week and hopefully I can keep improving."

One of the challenges for Bergeron in the offseason was tweaking workouts so he could work around the groin injury. He got a slower start than usual and missed most of July, then began working out in August. Perhaps more importantly will be the approach the Bruins take during the regular season to keep Bergeron healthy in his 15th NHL season. He's played 963 games – a lot of miles for the team's top center.

"Obviously taking even more care of that area, making sure I do a lot of rehab, and 'prehab' I should call it, to stay on top of it," Bergeron said. "As the year goes by, the body gets overused a bit."