The Boston Bruins announced that center Pavel Zacha left Saturday’s game against the New York Islanders early due to a lower-body injury.
Zacha, 26, left the game late in the first period after crashing into the boards while trying to break up an Islanders shorthanded chance. There’s no further information on the specifics of the injury or how long he will be out of the lineup with it.
Zacha left the game with one hit in 4:40 of ice time, with the Bruins down 3-0 at the time of his departure.
The Brno, Czech Republic product has had another productive season for the Bruins with 12 goals and 24 assists for 36 points in 58 games. Assuming his injury doesn’t keep him out of the lineup, he’s on pace for 49 points, which isn’t quite as much as the 57-point season he had in 2022-23, but still much better than any of his prior seasons.
Zacha’s also been one of the league’s better penalty-killing forwards in the league. Since 2021-22, his 0.604 shorthanded goals above expected is 16th in amongst forwards with at least 3,500 minutes of ice time in that span.
Zacha was the former sixth-overall pick of the New Jersey Devils in the 2015 NHL Draft, and after making his NHL debut in the final game of the Devils 2015-16 season, he established himself as a consistent NHLer and played six more seasons in New Jersey. In the 2022 offseason, he was traded to the Bruins for Erik Haula, and has spent the past two seasons in Boston.
Zacha is currently in the first year of a four-year contract with a $4.75 million cap hit, one he signed as an extension midway through the 2022-23 season amidst his career year.
Heading into Saturday’s games against the Islanders, the Bruins sat in second in the Atlantic Division with a 35-12-14 record, which is two points behind the Florida Panthers for the top spot in the division, the Eastern Conference, and the league.
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