The disappointment in Pavel Zacha’s eyes was unmistakable as he spoke after Wednesday morning’s Bruins practice about being forced to pull out of the 2026 Winter Olympics due to an injury.
Zacha had the hotels booked and the travel plans for his family locked in for them to watch the center skate for Team Czechia, but an injury in the final few games ahead of the Olympic break put things into question. The 28-year-old actually didn’t think the injury was a big deal and thought he’d still be able to go to Milan Cortina with teammate David Pastrnak to compete for Team Czechia, but things plateaued in his recovery after a few days and the injury timeline became an enemy rather than a friend.
That’s when Zacha, the Boston Bruins and the Czech Hockey Federation all made the difficult “mutual decision” to leave Zacha behind and allow him to rest and recover for the remaining six weeks of the NHL regular season once hockey resumes next week.
“It was really frustrating. Two things you are really looking forward to was the outdoor game and the Olympics, especially in the middle of the season,” said Zacha. “Making the decision of not going was really hard. It makes it even harder to watch the games knowing that I’m not over there and can’t experience it.
“It’s not easy. But on the other hand, I’m not missing many regular-season games [for the Bruins] because of the break, so it’s good that I had some time to slowly come back, which is nice. I thought right away that I was going to be going because I was getting better, but then [the recovery] just got stagnant. For three days it was getting better and then for five or six days it got worse, and with the timeline after a week-and-a-half then I knew it just wasn’t going to happen. That made it even worse because after the first three or four days it seemed like we were on the right track. That was frustrating, but there’s nothing you can do about it. Health is the number one thing and I couldn’t perform at a 100 percent level at all.”
Pavel Zacha said the decision to not go to the Olympics was a “mutual” decision after consulting with both the Czech National Team and the Bruins.
Timeline didn’t add up after getting injured on Jan. 29.
“Even watching the games now, it’s hard to watch a little bit.” pic.twitter.com/BTschcESwo
— Conor Ryan (@ConorRyan_93) February 18, 2026
Zacha admitted he couldn’t watch the Olympics during the first few days of the Winter Games because the emotional wound was still so fresh, but he’d begun watching the Czechia games ahead of them getting eliminated by Team Canada in the semifinals during a wild overtime contest in Milan.
“In the long run, having some time off is going to be good for our [Bruins] season,” admitted Zacha. “I am trying to look at in a positive light. The first couple of days it was tough to think about this positively at all, but on the other hand, for the team, it’s going to be good for me to have some rest.”
Essentially, both Zacha and Elias Lindholm were in the same exact spot, suffering injuries in the days leading up to the Winter Olympics. Lindholm ended up recovering to the point where he could compete for Team Sweden, though the two-way center has been in and out of the lineup for a Swedish team that was eliminated by the United States in another thrilling overtime game on Wednesday afternoon.
“I think the last couple of days [Zacha] has been here getting treatment and been on the right track, so we hope it’s going to continue like this so he can return next week. Timing is everything and unfortunately timing was not on his side,” said Marco Sturm. “Him and Elias were in exactly the same boat and we didn’t know if they could go or not go.
“Pav just couldn’t so it’s very unfortunate. I know he was very bummed. You only have those opportunities once in a while. So we feel for him, but I think he’s just happy he’s here right now and that he’s feeling better.”
The shame of it for both Zacha and Czechia is that maybe, just maybe, he could have been the
