The Bruins keep fighting. It may not be enough with these injuries.

Boston Bruins

“The guys battled. I don’t know, for some reason we can’t stay healthy.”

The Bruins’ road bout against the Red Wings on Tuesday followed a familiar script. 

An early deficit for Boston was met with a spirited comeback by Marco Sturm’s club … only to come up just short of valuable points in the standings. 

The end result? A 5-4 loss in Detroit, and an assortment of both silver linings and pained reflections echoed by a team desperately trying to find some traction at this stage of the season.

As pedestrian as Boston’s 15-13-0 record might be upon first glance, a reworked Bruins roster has largely been a compelling product this year under Sturm’s watch. 

Beyond breakout performances from the likes of Morgan Geekie, there’s been a considerable amount of buy-in for Boston’s skaters into Sturm’s preachings of a hard-nosed, physical team whose will and competitiveness can counter their lack of talent. 

Those efforts have limited just how many true lopsided losses have been doled out against Boston — a far cry from last year’s rudderless grouping. 

Ancillary pieces and younger skaters like Fraser Minten, Alex Steeves (two goals on Tuesday), Tanner Jeannot, Mark Kastelic, Marat Khusnutdinov, and others have all become key cogs in short order. 

The 2025-26 Bruins have taken their lumps so far. To their credit, they keep on getting off the mat and remaining in the fight, as ugly as the scraps have been. 

But even a tenacious Bruins roster is starting to find itself in a losing battle when it comes to a seemingly endless number of injuries that has sapped its depth chart.

“The guys battled,” Sturm said postgame on NESN. “I don’t know, for some reason we can’t stay healthy. … We just have to play smarter than that 5-on-5 to get some points out of here.”

Look no further than Tuesday’s result — a game where Boston lost yet another defenseman after Michael Callahan went down with a lower-body injury in the first period. 

Callahan — already an emergency call-up after blueliner Henri Jokiharju landed on injured reserve — is the just the latest D-man to end up on the shelf. 

Boston is already trudging forward without its top talent on the back end in Charlie McAvoy, while Jordan Harris remains on long-term injured reserve due to ankle surgery. 

Even though McAvoy skated last week before practice, there is still no timeline for the star to return for game action after taking a slap shot to the jaw on Nov. 15. 

And at Little Caesars Arena, a severely undermanned Bruins D corps was diced up by a lethal Detroit offense. 

Tuesday was a sizable setback for Jeremy Swayman, who was pulled in the third period after coughing up five goals on 23 shots. But the structure in front of him also wasn’t much better, especially with players forced to tread water in elevated roles. 

Andrew Peeke — the top right-shot defenseman who logged 23:10 of ice time on Tuesday — was out on the ice for all five of Detroit’s goals. 

Rookie Jonathan Aspirot — the 26-year-old rookie who opened the year in Providence — scored a goal and recorded 21:14 of ice time on defense.

The Bruins are already operating with a slim margin for error with McAvoy on the mend. But this recent surge of injuries further down the lineup is continuing to put strain on Sturm’s systems.

“It was almost not fair to him, the way we played front of him,” Sturm said of pulling Swayman. “We kind of left him alone a little bit. Yeah, he could have maybe saved one or two, but he’s been so good. So I just wanted to change it up a little bit, maybe give a little bit of spark to the team.”

Even on a night where Boston did score four goals, the team’s primary concern up front still revolves around David Pastrnak.

Tuesday marked the third-straight game that Boston’s top player has missed due to a lower-body injury. And based on Strum’s pregame comments, it doesn’t appear as though a return is in the cards on Thursday night against the Blues. 

“We gotta be careful with him,” Sturm said of Pastrnak. “He’s not skating this week, so I don’t expect him to play this week. He definitely needs a few practices or a few skates, I would say.”

A prolonged absence for Boston’s offensive cheat code will likely spell doom for a Bruins team reliant on his potent shot and playmaking capabilities.

The Bruins scored two goals apiece in its first two games without Pastrnak in the lineup.

And even with a four-goal output by Boston on Tuesday, the presence of an elite scorer like Pastrnak could have been the difference between a point or two in the standings — especially against a goalie in John Gibson who sported an .819 save percentage in his previous five outings. 

While the Bruins await the return of both Pastrnak and McAvoy, it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise if Sturm’s team keeps on scrapping and clawing against opponents despite their shorthanded personnel. 

But until Boston’s big guns start to return to the ice, the same disjointed results might be the status quo for this grouping. 

 

Conor Ryan is a staff writer covering the Bruins, Celtics, Patriots, and Red Sox for Boston.com, a role he has held since 2023.