Report: Lindholm played final four weeks of season with a fractured ankle

The offseason autopsy of the Boston Bruins' 2022-23 season continues as fans, analysts, players, coaches and management all try to figure out just what went wrong with this team in their opening round playoff series against the Florida Panthers.

After putting up the best regular season in NHL history, the Bruins absolutely messed the bed against the Panthers losing in Game 7 overtime... in a game where they had a 3-2 lead with seconds remaining in regulation and a series where they held a 3-1 series lead.

Suffice it to say that Bruins fans aren't happy...

A lot of them are angry at the handling of captain Patrice Bergeron who very clearly was playing hurt due to an injury suffered playing meaningless regular season games down the stretch. Most Bruins fans feel like Bergeron and the team's top players should be been rested so that they were ready for the playoffs. After all, several other teams were taking that approach and it seemed to serve them well. The Bruins though just ran their players into the ground.

We're learning now that another key member of this team, defenseman Hampus Lindholm played the final three weeks of the regular season and the entirety of the first round playoff series with a fractured foot.

More from Bruins insider Joe Haggerty:

The Swedish defenseman told Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet that he played during the postseason with a fractured foot and had played with the injury for the final few weeks of the regular season as well. Lindholm was a shell of himself during the playoffs, finishing with zero points in the seven games and generally looked very uncomfortable trying to move the puck against the fast, physical and heavy Florida forecheck.

- Joe Haggerty

The funny thing is that Lindholm made no mention of the injury during his season ending media availability.

“I’d say I was fine. Everyone has bumps and bruises that time of year. There are no excuses on that stuff,” said Lindholm on the day the Boston Bruins cleaned out their lockers at Warrior Ice Arena. “I think even if you were to have something linger…like we had guys play through stuff. It’s just that time of year. You try to find ways. We couldn’t really do that this year.”

As we sometimes see with European players though, the real story comes out in their native language during the offseason. This appears to be the case with Lindholm and his interview with Swedish publication Aftonbladet.