For the second consecutive season, Bruce Cassidy and the Bruins will have to compete for a Stanley Cup without the services of top-four defenseman Brandon Carlo.
Injured in a horrific-looking fall in the third period of last Saturday's 5-1 victory over the Panthers, Bruins general manager Don Sweeney finally confirmed what your eyes told you when the 21-year-old was stretchered off the ice and back to the B's locker room.
"Brandon sustained a fracture to his left ankle and is scheduled to have the fracture repaired later this week by Dr. George Theodore of MGH," Sweeney said in a statement Tuesday. "He will miss the rest of the regular season and playoffs."
The tough break came in the midst of what was undoubtedly Carlo's most consistent and impressive run of what was a trying second season, and with he and Torey Krug emerging as Boston's go-to second-pairing option just two weeks before the start of the postseason.
"I felt bad for Brandon the minute it happened," Cassidy said after Tuesday's loss. "But he's young, he'll bounce back, and hopefully get some better luck going forward."
Despite totaling just six assists in 76 games this season, Carlo ranked eighth among Boston skaters with 19:14 of time on ice per game, and was third among Boston blue liners with 84 blocked shots. The loss of Carlo is also a sneaky big one for the Boston penalty kill, which ranked fifth in the NHL (82.8 success rate) at the time of No. 25's injury, and with Carlo having averaged 2:46 of shorthanded time on ice per game this year (second-most among B's skaters).
According to Sweeney, the expected recovery time is between three-to-four months, and comes practically a year to the day after the concussion that knocked Carlo out of all six games of last year's first-round series loss to the Senators.
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