Nathan Horton suffers shoulder injury, Bruins in trouble?
As we have seen in the Bruins’ quest for the Stanley Cup, it takes a lot for a player to take himself out of the game due to an injury. Unfortunately for first-line forward Nathan Horton, his injury is too serious to risk continue playing.
Horton has a chronic shoulder subluxation in his left shoulder, which is a fancy name for an injury very similar to a dislocated shoulder. Horton missed the final five games of the season due to the pain and while he has been very effective in the playoffs (seven goals and 11 assists), he has been battling the injury in every series.
The problems originally started to heat up when his fight with Jarome Iginla during the Bruins’ four game sweep of the Penguins exasperated the injury. The straw that broke the camel’s back though was when he ran into Chicago’s Niklas Hjalmarsso and immediately grabbed his arm as he hunched over in pain.
There is some good news, Horton’s shoulder can be popped back in and stabilized so that he can continue playing, so this injury is more day-to-day than anything else. Considering how important Horton has been to the Bruins’ front line in the offseason, his recovery is necessary. The bad news, as we have seen, is that he can be reinjured at any time which makes him much more fragile and susceptible in any close confrontations or fights on the ice.
Until then Horton will have to do his best to stick it out and work through the pain. He has been taking shots in his shoulder to ease the pain and inflammation and will reportedly need surgery in the offseason to fully secure his shoulder so that he can reduce the possibility of being reinjured. For the Bruins to succeed they’ll need Horton at top form, so whatever he is doing to minimize the damage had better work for the next week.
The Bruins dropped Game One to Chicago in a marathon that ended in a tragic loss considering their early lead, and will need their A-game in Game Two of the series Saturday night.
