What Was Patrice Bergeron's Mystery Injury? Pretty Much Everything.

Bergeron, the Bruins' irreplaceable two-way center, was questionable for last night after being rushed to the hospital during Game 5. No one would say precisely what was ailing him, but after he had to watch the Blackhawks lift the cup, he fessed up: he was a broken man.

"I had a broken rib, torn cartilage and muscles, and I had a separated shoulder...The shoulder was tonight."

Claude Julien wasn't just dissembling when he said Bergeron had a "body injury."

Early speculation had focused on his spleen, and Bergeron confirmed the fear of that was why he had been hospitalized. But the spleen was fine. It was everything else that hurt.

Not that anyone is 100 percent come the very last game of the season, but Bergeron was obviously ailing. He got 17:45 of ice time, his fewest minutes since a Game 2 conference final blowout of Pittsburgh. After a .621 faceoff win percentage in the regular season, the Bruins' faceoff specialist lost six of the 11 drops he took last night. And maybe more important than anything else, Bergeron was kept away from Chicago's Toews line, even as it ran roughshod over Krejci-Lucic-Horton.

Bergeron was in pain afterward, but it wasn't the sort of pain to be healed by rest and rehab.

“You work so hard to get to this point and to give yourself a chance to get the Cup and you feel like you’re right there and you have a chance to force Game 7 and, definitely, it hurts.’’