Several Bruins missing from Saturday's practice

Whatever is going on with the Boston Bruins, it doesn't appear to be good. Earlier this week, we learned both David Pastrnak and Ondrej Kase were missing from practice and deemed "unfit to play." We've since learned Pastrnak is in quarantine after coming in contact with someone who has tested positive for COVID-19. Whatever is wrong with Kase remains a mystery. Now, more Bruins are on the missing list.

"In Saturday's practice, both Pastrnak and Kase were still not in attendance. Besides that, David Krejci, Charlie Coyle, Chris Wagner, Sean Kuraly, Nick Ritchie, Torey Krug and Tuukka Rask were all absent. Following the practice, head coach Bruce Cassidy told media that all were deemed "unfit to play" but wouldn't say much other than that.

"We had no injuries to speak of," said Cassidy. "Unfit to play - the league has asked us to continue along that line for the respect of the privacy of the players. That's what we'll do…there's always different reasons. There's the quarantine rules, there's waiting on test results, there's a number of different things that factor into this. It doesn't automatically assume that we have a positive test."

"We want to get to Toronto as healthy as possible. I guess that's how I would elaborate on that. We hope to have some of these players back [on Sunday]. [Sunday] was a scheduled day off, so the group that was on today will not skate [Sunday]. We're not gonna change that. If some guys missed and are cleared to skate, then we may go on [Sunday]."

Rask was recently seen in a Zoom call sporting a finger splint. He was absent from practice Thursday but did attend Friday. A hard shot to the glove hand on the first day of training camp had apparently been giving him some trouble.

Whether any of the current injuries or ailments are long term remains to be seen. Luckily for Boston, the team does not have to take part in the qualifying round to get into the playoffs. It does, however, have round robin games to play to determine seeding for the top 16 teams.

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