There is a stat I meant to chase down for my own amusement on December 16, and that is the identity of the Bruins Iron Man. At the time it was still Mark Stuart, but he had broken his sternum and was set to miss the next 6 weeks or so. That was a month ago, so naturally he may return Saturday in time to play the Kings. I haven’t mentioned it yet, but I will likely do so often on this blog (assuming I write in it regularly): I love Mark Stuart. He’s a hard-working, good, reliable rock on our blue line.
My first thought was that Patrice Bergeron was our Iron Man. Perhaps he hadn’t missed a game since his second concussion? January 5th that question became moot with the breaking of a finger, but it turned out not to be so anyway. Along with Zdeno Chara, Patrice sat out the last two games of the season last year to prepare for the playoffs. I composed a list.
Mark Recchi, Marco Sturm, Zdeno Chara, Blake Wheeler, Michael Ryder and Steve Begin have played all 44 games this season for the Bruins. 6 players. You can also kind of add Tuuka Rask, who has been dressed for all 82 games. I cannot remember if Thomas dressed for every game this season, but he was injured and not particularly available for much of November.
Anywho, of those six, Sturm and Begin were definitely not the Iron Man, as Sturm was injured most of 08-09, and Begin was a damned dirty Hab last year. Chara sat out the last two games against the Sabres and Islanders. So each of those 3 have consecutive games played streaks of 44. I backtracked the schedule, and found that Blake Wheeler was a healthy scratch on a March 7 victory (5-3 against the Blackhawks), making his streak currently 60 games. Mark Recchi joined the team at the trade deadline, 62 games ago, making Michael Ryder your Boston Bruins Iron Man! It goes all the way back…. four games more than Recchi. A total of 66 games to the February 24th tilt against Florida. Prior to that he had missed 7 games with a broken face.
Frankly, the injuries are a bit worrisome for me. I think it is a bad sign that no Bruins has managed to stay in the lineup for a calendar year. Only Chara has stayed healthy for that time. A team needs consistency, but in the age of the salary cap there simply isn’t the kind of top-end depth that can fill in when your top players are continually going down. The good news is that even with the injury parade, the Bruins have managed to stay afloat in 5th in the East. If the hockey gods can simply leave us alone down the stretch, maybe the rested players will return us to the form we showed last season.
