BOSTON -- Bruins assistant captain Patrice Bergeron was released Wednesday from the hospital, where he had been since the end of Monday's Game 6 with a small puncture in his lung.

Bergeron is also suffering from a cracked rib, torn rib cartilage and a separated shoulder. It is unclear how and when the punctured lung occurred.

Bruins general manager Peter Chiarelli first said the puncture was the result of a nerve block procedure Bergeron had done to decrease pain from a cracked rib so he could play in Game 6. Later, Chiarelli and coach Claude Julien estimated that the lung puncture occurred after Game 6.

"I don't think he could have played if it happened during the game," Chiarelli said. "I just, I don't. I'm not a doctor, but I don't think he could have played if it happened. He was aware of the risk going into it.

"I don't know exactly what had happened, but he couldn't have played if it had happened during the game, so it may have happened after," Chiarelli said. "We caught it and it was like he had a pain in his lung and we brought him to the hospital."

On the nerve block procedure, Chiarelli said: "It was for the cartilage. So there's a freezing type of procedure, the nerve block, that Patrice opted to do so he could play in the game."

Chiarelli acknowledged the seriousness of Bergeron's lung injury.

"Any time anyone gets frozen up, they're at risk," Chiarelli said. "Not for future injury, but from a pain perspective, and certainly he was at risk from the lung perspective, but it was a small puncture and he's fine now."

There was no timetable on his recovery, but Bergeron's agent confirmed he was released Wednesday from the hospital.

Prior to that announcement at the beginning of Chiarelli's and Julien's season-ending news conference, Bergeron's teammates were still in awe of what he went through to play.

"I didn't really know all that he was dealing with but I knew he was in a lot of pain," goalie Tuukka Rask said. "But to see him go out there and battle through it like that with one lung I guess, it's unbelievable and I don't really know how to describe it."

Winger Milan Lucic also expressed his admiration for his teammate.

"Just his willingness to play in that game and to leave it all out there is really impressive," Lucic said. "Playing through what he played through and his will to win. And that's why he's basically won every trophy a guy can win, that's why he's one of our main leaders in this hockey club. He's shown how important of a player he is. And it was pretty inspirational to see him suck it up and play Game 6, and I think that's why we had such a great start. Hopefully he can get some much-needed rest here and heal up his injury 100 percent too, so he's ready to go next year."

Bergeron finished the playoffs with nine goals and 15 points in 22 games.