Bruins Notebook: Zboril to miss rest of 2021-22 season; NHL participation in Olympics reportedly canned

An already difficult week for the Bruins just got a whole lot worse, as the B’s announced on Tuesday morning that defenseman Jakub Zboril has been ruled out for the rest of the 2021-22 season after undergoing surgery for a torn ACL.

Zboril, 24, suffered an injury to his right knee during a game against the Nashville Predators on Dec. 2 after getting tangled up with Tanner Jeannot — with the blueliner not putting any weight on his leg while getting helped off the ice. 

At the time, the Bruins announced that Zboril would be re-evaluated in two weeks — with Tuesday’s announcement noting that the defenseman underwent surgery at Mass General  Brigham on Thursday, Dec. 16.

It’s an absolutely brutal break for Zboril, who was in the midst of playing the best hockey of his young career and really solidifying the lower end of Boston’s D-corps depth chart. 

In what has largely been a frustrating season for the B’s, Zboril stood as one of the few pleasant surprises on Boston’s roster – recording three assists over 10 games while averaging 15:44 of ice time. Despite those lingering narratives regarding his first-round draft status, it sure looked as though Zboril was molding into a solid, everyday NHLer this year — earning steady ice time and entrenching himself on Boston’s third D pair next to Mike Reilly. 

In the 90:55 of 5v5 ice time that the Reilly-Zboril pairing logged, the Bruins outscored opponents, 3-2, while holding a pretty sizable advantage in shots on goal (66-36). 

Even though the Bruins do have some pieces that can slot in on that third pairing in Zboril’s absence like John Moore, Connor Clifton and potentially another youngster in Jack Ahcan — it’s still a disappointing development for both Zboril and the Bruins, who looked like they finally had another homegrown talent ready to contribute on this roster.

"I went through that injury twice,” Bruce Cassidy said of Zboril. “With today's modern medicine, he should have an easier rehab and be fine coming out of it. But for his sake, he was playing good hockey for us and kind of earned a spot in the lineup on a regular basis. 

"And you'd hope that because of that he was playing with a little more confidence and a little more certainty in his game every night, that it would have only gotten better. So unfortunate for him and the team obviously that he's going to be done for the year. So hopefully, like I said, there's no complications in his rehabilitation and he can help us again next year.”

Brandon Carlo placed in COVID-19 protocol 

The Bruins might have shuttered operations through at least Dec. 26, but this break hasn’t stopped the B’s roster from getting thinned even more due to COVID-19 protocols.

The team announced on Tuesday morning that Brandon Carlo has also been placed in COVID protocols, with the defenseman now subjected to the same 10-day quarantine that has put a majority of the team on the shelf over the past few weeks.

With Carlo now down for the count, the Bruins have had two staff members and 10 total players in COVID protocols — Craig Smith, Patrice Bergeron, Brad Marchand, Jeremy Swayman, Anton Blidh, Trent Frederic, Oskar Steen, Taylor Hall, Curtis Lazar and Carlo. 

IF the Bruins do resume games next week, Carlo won’t be cleared until Jan. 4 if he must adhere to that 10-day quarantine — which means that he’s currently slated to miss four games that are currently still on the docket.

 So long as the NHL goes ahead with its plans to resume play starting on Dec. 27, the B’s are set to have a number of lineup regulars cleared for that Monday-night game against the Penguins — including Marchand, Smith, Bergeron, Swayman and more. 

However, as we noted yesterday, the Bruins will face some challenges if they need to travel up to Canada next Wednesday for a matchup against the Senators — with visitors not allowed into the country if 14 days have not passed since a positive COVID test.

As such, IF (you’ll see that word a lot over the next few days) the Bruins do go ahead and play the Sens up in Ottawa, the only players on the COVID list that will be eligible to play in that game are Marchand and Smith.

Full steam ahead - except for the Olympics 

While it’s far from a forgone conclusion that the Bruins will resume play starting next Monday against the Penguins, one of the roadblocks standing in their way in terms of a lack of adequate practice time coming out of the break does appear to be negated.

With the NHL announcing a league-wide shutdown from Dec. 22 - 25 — this augmented schedule now opens the door for players to report back to their clubs on Dec. 26 to test and practice at team facilities. No individual in a team’s traveling party will gain entry to the facility without first posting a negative test result.  

So, barring any other testing complications, the Bruins could very well get a full practice in on Sunday at Warrior and battle the Penguins the following night. 

"I haven't talked to everybody every day but nobody's become severely ill,” Cassidy said of his players in COVID protocol. “A couple of guys had a few symptoms, other guys none. But I anticipate everybody that is eligible, that meets that 10 days ... they will join us on the ice on the 26th for practice, I believe, and then on the 27th at home against Pittsburgh.

“Now some guys, I'm not 100% sure on the guys because of the dates on these, because we had guys almost daily for three or four days there, who will be able to travel to Canada who meet the 14-day requirement. So you might see a different lineup in Ottawa than against Pittsburgh. Now the guys that went in recently at the end here — I think it's Carlo, Hall and Lazar — I don't believe are eligible for Pittsburgh.”

While it appears as though the NHL plans to push through with these games ahead of the new year, it’s pretty much a given that players are going to be held out of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing — due to both the COVID-related risks / restrictive quarantine measures, and the need to use that three-week break to fill out a league schedule littered with postponements. 

Even though Cassidy — who is slated to serve on Team Canada’s coaching staff in Beijing — did not definitively say that NHL participation in the Winter Games was canned, Frank Seravalli of Daily Face Off reported that both the NHL and NHLPA are in agreement on the matter, with an official announcement to be announced at some point this week. 

"Until I'm told differently, I was on a call last week with (Jon Cooper), we put some video together for all the coaches," Cassidy said of Olympic prep work. "So we're still planning accordingly. It hasn't been every day where we do that, but we pick away at it and try to stay in touch with one another. I spoke to Barry (Trotz) at length in New York the other day when we were there about a couple things just hockey-related, COVID-related — because his team went through it — and Olympics-related. So fingers crossed, but yes, I've heard the rumblings. 

"And I'd be very disappointed. I've never been, as most people haven't. So I was really looking forward to it. It doesn't matter where it was going to be. It was just the whole environment of the Olympics, being around the best athletes in the world and every sport. So yeah, like I said, until we hear from the NHL and Doug Armstrong, in our case, who's the general manager of Team Canada, I'm gonna hope that they find a way to get it done. If not, then hopefully down the road, there will be another opportunity."