So
while the New
York Rangers were busy acquiring Rick
Nash from the Columbus
Blue Jackets despite losing no vital components off their
roster, the Bruins were busy simply maintaining what they already
had. Who can blame them? The Bruins are one of the most
well-balanced teams in the NHL, leading the League in goal
differential two seasons in a row and three of the past four.
However, to suggest Chiarelli's summer consisted simply of routine
housekeeping would be a huge understatement, seeing as a big
reason for the Bruins' recent success threw him a huge curveball.
When goaltender Tim
Thomas decided he would take the upcoming season off to spend
more time with his family, it left Chiarelli and the Bruins with
his $5 million salary-cap hit and a sudden need to see if heir
apparent Tuukka
Rask was ready to take over a little earlier than planned.
"All along we've been working on what I call a succession
plan, where we were going to pass the baton to Tuukka,"
Chiarelli told Ottawa radio station the Team 1200 earlier this
month. "That's what I've been telling him since he's been 20.
This probably accelerates it by a year, but it's his chance to
show us he's a true No. 1. I've always told him we'd like to have
him on the Bruins for his whole career, so this is a good
opportunity for him."
Chiarelli
signed Rask to a one-year, $3.5 million contract during the
summer, meaning Rask will need to seize that opportunity quickly
if he wants to be in Boston for the long term. Chiarelli said when
Rask was signed that a long-term contract was not discussed
because Rask wants to prove he can "be the man before he gets
paid like the man." "Look, $3.5 million isn't exactly
chump change, but we've all seen the goaltending carousel [of
contracts] that's been going on lately," Chiarelli told
reporters after he signed Rask. "He wants to prove that he's
the No. 1 goalie for the Bruins for a long time. This was the
easiest way to set the stage for that. He's been a really good
goalie for us, but for one year he hasn't been the No. 1 goalie.
The stage is set for him and we'll see where it takes
us."
Additions: D Garnet Exelby, LW Chris Bourque
Subtractions: D Joe Corvo, D Greg Zanon, LW Benoit Pouliot, C Zach Hamill
UFAs: LW Brian Roslton, D Mike Mottau, G Marty Turco
Promotion candidates: D Matt Bartkowski, D Colby Cohen, D David Warsofsky
Additions: D Garnet Exelby, LW Chris Bourque
Subtractions: D Joe Corvo, D Greg Zanon, LW Benoit Pouliot, C Zach Hamill
UFAs: LW Brian Roslton, D Mike Mottau, G Marty Turco
Promotion candidates: D Matt Bartkowski, D Colby Cohen, D David Warsofsky
Rask,
25, has carried a heavy workload before, with Thomas battling
injuries in 2009-10, he played 45 games and shone with a 22-12-5
record, five shutouts, a 1.97 goals against average and a .931
save percentage. But he's never played as many games since, he's
never matched the numbers he put up that season, and – most
importantly – he's never carried the status of being the team's
unchallenged No. 1 goaltender. Chiarelli is not concerned. "He's
a terrific young goalie and I think he's going to seize the
opportunity," he told the Team 1200. "There will
probably be some bumps in the road to start, just mentally because
of having the No. 1 label on you, but he's always shown he can
play through that stuff." Aside from the change in goal, most
of the differences on the Bruins roster this season will be made
to make room for an infusion of youth. Up front, Benoit
Pouliot was traded to the Tampa
Bay Lightning, which creates room for young Jordan
Caron to claim a full-time job in Boston. On defense, Joe
Corvo was allowed to leave as a free agent (Carolina
Hurricanes), and that hole could be filled by the organization's
top prospect, Dougie
Hamilton. Hamilton "is going to get an excellent chance
to make our team," Chiarelli told the Team 1200. Otherwise, a
lot of the changes for the Bruins will come from the continued
improvement of their young stars, starting with 20-year-old Tyler
Seguin, who could be gearing up for a breakout season, and
continuing with Milan
Lucic, Brad
Marchand, and even Selke Trophy-winner Patrice
Bergeron, who is 27 yet has been in the NHL since 2003.
Chiarelli is hoping Nathan
Horton's concussion problems are behind him and he can go back
to being the player who scored 26 goals his first season in Boston
in 2010-11. The Bruins also have the benefit of counting on
perhaps the NHL's most effective defenseman, Zdeno
Chara, on a nightly basis. With a team like this, Chiarelli's
relatively quiet summer was not only understandable – it was
logical.
The Boston
Bruins have some question marks heading into the season, but
none are likely of a make-or-break nature for a team that has had
a stranglehold on the Northeast Division for the past two years
and doesn’t appear to be on the verge of relinquishing it.
Still, with a new starting goaltender, a sniper returning from
injury, a young defenseman attempting to make a big jump to the
NHL, and a chronic deficiency still unresolved, the Bruins do have
some issues that need to be dealt with. While a playoff berth may
not be hanging in the balance, just how far the Bruins go in the
Stanley Cup Playoffs could very well depend on a number of
factors.
The
Bruins' ties with Tim
Thomas were cut a year earlier than expected when the quirky
goaltender informed Boston general manager Peter Chiarelli after
the season ended that he would be taking a year off from hockey.
For most NHL teams, having a starting goaltender who is still
under contract deliver news like that would be a devastating blow,
one that would require some creative maneuvering to find a
replacement, potentially weakening another area of the team in the
process. That was not the case for Chiarelli, who had a
replacement already waiting in the wings: Tuukka
Rask. Rask, 25, has been groomed for this moment ever since he
was acquired from the Toronto
Maple Leafs in 2006 for Andrew
Raycroft, waiting patiently behind one of the League's top
goaltenders for his opportunity to shine. "I kind of felt
like I paid my dues down in the minors and sitting on the bench
most of the time the last couple of years," Rask told
CSNNE.com over the summer. "So it's a big challenge for me
and I'm really looking forward to that." Rask's career
numbers certainly suggest he is ready to take this next step. In
102 career NHL games, Rask has a 47-35-11 record with 11 shutouts,
a 2.20 goals-against average and a .926 save percentage. But the
biggest workload in a single season in his professional career was
57 games with the American Hockey League's Providence Bruins in
2008-09. With unproven Anton Khubodin backing him up, it is likely
Rask will be looked upon to play far more often than that this
season. "I'm sure there will be questions raised when I have
a bad game or two, but that's part of the job and I'm sure I can
handle it," Rask said. "Mentally, everything's fine. But
when you play a lot of games and you play consecutive games, you
have to take care of your body. I think that will be the biggest
challenge for me, staying on top of that and staying healthy."
The pressure on Rask to perform at a level approaching what Thomas
has given the Bruins the past two seasons will be enormous, so he
will need to be just as mentally strong as he is physically to get
through it.
Horton
was having one of the best seasons of his career when an illegal
hit by the Vancouver Canucks' Aaron
Rome (now with the Dallas
Stars) in Game 3 of the 2011 Stanley Cup Final left him with a
concussion. Horton scored 26 goals in the regular season in
2010-11, his first in Boston, and he was a key component of the
Bruins' march to the Final. Last season, Horton, much like his
entire team, got off to a slow start with two goals and three
assists in his first 12 games. But he was on a good run of eight
goals in 11 games when he was hit Jan. 22 by Philadelphia
Flyers defenseman Tom
Sestito, giving Horton another concussion that cost him the
remainder of the season. Horton was cleared for contact again over
the summer and will be ready for Bruins training camp, but will he
be the same physical, offensive threat who can produce 25-plus
goals? If he's unable to get back to that level of play, it will
leave a big hole among Boston's top six forwards.
The
No. 9 selection at the 2011 NHL Draft had a tremendous season with
the Ontario Hockey League's Niagara IceDogs, putting up 72 points
in 50 games to be named the Canadian Hockey League's defenseman of
the year. Listed at 6-foot-5 and 193 pounds last season, Hamilton
focused on adding strength to that massive frame so he can compete
in the NHL as soon as this season, something Chiarelli is hoping
becomes a reality. "One of the things that we've
accomplished, that [coach] Claude [Julien] has accomplished, is
we've brought youth into our lineup and allowed them to develop
and succeed rather than throw them into the fire right away and
all," Chiarelli told reporters at the Bruins' development
camp in July. "Dougie
Hamilton, we would hope that he would get into our lineup and
fall into that category." An added benefit for allowing
Hamilton to make the leap to the NHL as soon as this season would
be his exposure to fellow big-bodied defenseman Zdeno
Chara, who would likely teach Hamilton more than he would ever
learn in the junior ranks. "There comes a point where you get
diminishing returns when you're a player of that caliber,"
Chiarelli told Ottawa's the Team 1200 earlier this month. "We
don’t want to hand the job to him, but he's everything you want
in a defenseman right now. He's young and he has to come into his
own as a professional, but he's tall, has great range, sees the
ice well, likes to hit and likes to close off defensively."
Seguin
led the Bruins in scoring last season with 67 points at the age of
20, a jump of 45 points from his rookie year. It would be
unreasonable to suggest Seguin's production could increase at a
similar rate a second year in a row, but there is very little
doubt his point total will continue to climb, just how high is the
question. For a player so young, Seguin was quite consistent last
season, but he did show signs he was wearing down as the season
went on. He had 32 points in 34 games by New Year's Eve and had a
slight drop to 35 points in 47 games in 2012. His longest stretch
without a point all season was three games, and all four times it
happened came in the second half of the season. In the playoffs,
Seguin was held off the scoresheet through the first five games of
Boston's first-round defeat against the Washington
Capitals, but he managed three points in the final two games.
Coming in with some already established chemistry with linemates
Patrice
Bergeron and Brad
Marchand, plus some physical maturity that should help him
deal with the rigors of the long NHL season, should help Seguin
maintain the production he showed early on last season right
through spring.
One
of the mysteries surrounding the Bruins the past few seasons has
been the relative ineffectiveness of the team's power play. All
the pieces are there, the League's hardest slap shot from the
point from Chara, the big body in front of the net with Milan
Lucic and Horton, the elite playmaking skill of Seguin,
Bergeron and David
Krejci, plus a healthy dose of solid role players with enough
offensive skill to fill holes in case of injury. Despite having
the necessary ingredients for a potent power play, the Bruins
finished 15th in the NHL last season with a 17.2 percent success
rate – and that was their highest ranking since finishing fourth
in the League in 2008-09. Fixing this chronic issue will be one of
Julien's biggest challenges this season.
Winning
back-to-back Stanley Cups has proven to be impossible for any team
during the past 14 years, and the Bruins definitely showed the
effects of a long playoff run at both the beginning and end of
last season. But with the core elements of their champion team
from 2011 still in Boston, and with many of the younger ones
having improved since that time, there's little reason to believe
the Bruins are not legitimate contenders for hockey's ultimate
prize. Also, Seguin, Lucic, Marchand, Horton, Rask and Andrew
Ference will be playing for new contracts, and nothing stacks
a player’s resume like championships. "It almost makes you
hungrier because you've had that taste of what it's like to win,"
Lucic told CSNNE.com last week. "You watch that Game 6
between the Kings and the Devils and you see them celebrating with
the Cup, you want to relive that feeling. I think that's what
drives you to want more going into next season, and talking to the
guys coming back I think we're all on the same page."
The
Boston Bruins have more experience than they would care to have when
it comes to understanding the risks of multiple concussions.The
Bruins have seen both sides of the spectrum when it comes to
concussion recovery, with center Marc Savard still unable to play
more than two years after he was originally hurt by a blindside hit
by Pittsburgh Penguins forward Matt Cooke, and Patrice Bergeron
making a very successful return from a concussion that cost him the
better part of the 2007-08 season. Now, Boston is eagerly waiting to
see how Nathan Horton will bounce back from suffering his second
concussion in a span of six months when he was hit by Philadelphia
Flyers defenseman Tom Sestito on Jan. 22. The Bruins announced in
July that Horton had been cleared for contact by team doctors, so now
they just need to wait and see how he reacts to being hit in training
camp against live competition. "Our medical staff says he'll be
ready to go when we start playing," Bruins general manager Peter
Chiarelli said at a July 23 news conference to announce coach Claude
Julien's multiyear contract extension. Horton began last season with
the same uncertainty as this one. He was recovering from a concussion
that occurred in Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Final, and he admitted
last season that his slow start was a direct result of his injury.
"The start of the season, definitely the concussion was an
issue," Horton told ESPNBoston.com on Jan 12. "I definitely
wasn't myself and didn't feel the way I wanted to. It wasn't, like I
said then, like post-concussion syndrome or something like that I
think, but more me just trying to get my timing and confidence back
and, yeah, maybe being a bit hesitant with my physical game. It was
definitely tough, but as the team started to win, and in like
November and into December, I felt better, and I feel much better
now."
At
the time he made those comments, Horton had scored five goals in his
past four games – matching his total from his previous 22 games in
less than a week. "I think, just like most guys, I play my best
hockey when I am not thinking too much and hesitating on plays, and
I'm doing that now," Horton said that day. "It seems like
right now that's how it's going for me. I'm more comfortable and I'm
just having fun out there. I also think technically I wanted to start
shooting more. I was getting only like one shot a game and now I'm
just shooting whenever I can and then getting to the net for
rebounds. If you shoot, anything can happen, and I'm thinking more
that way now." Just 10 days later, Horton was back on the shelf
with another concussion that would cost him the rest of the season
and the playoffs. The impact of Horton's absence on the Bruins'
offense is very plain to see – the team averaged 3.54 goals per
game in the 46 games prior to the injury and 2.69 goals per game
after he was hurt. In terms of wins and losses, the Bruins were
31-13-2 before Horton was hurt and 18-16-2 afterward, followed by a
seven-game elimination in the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs
by the Washington Capitals. If Horton can avoid the slow start he
experienced last season, it will allow Julien to at least try to
reassemble his line with Milan Lucic and David Krejci, giving the
Bruins two potent scoring lines and re-establishing the balanced
attack that makes the team thrive. But if Horton struggles out of the
gate again, Julien may be forced to improvise, which would have an
impact on the other forward lines on a team that comes back virtually
intact from last season. Indeed, Horton will be under an intense
microscope through training camp and the beginning of the regular
season to see which avenue the Bruins will need to take.
At
one point during the 2011-12 season, the Boston
Bruins didn't just look like favorites to repeat as Stanley Cup
champions, they looked like a juggernaut not seen in the NHL since
the days when the Montreal
Canadiens last ruled the landscape. A couple of injuries,
particularly another concussion for Nathan
Horton, short-circuited the team's forward depth, and goaltender
Tim Thomas
wasn't quite superhuman like he was the year before. Thomas' play on
the ice also was overshadowed by his decision to not join his
teammates at the White House to celebrate the Cup win with President
Obama. Thomas has said he's taking the season off, but the Bruins
should again be among the NHL's elite, especially with some extra
rest after a surprising first-round playoff exit.
Forwards
Milan
Lucic - David
Krejci - Nathan
Horton
Brad
Marchand - Patrice
Bergeron - Tyler
Seguin
Rich
Peverley - Chris
Kelly - Jordan
Caron
Shawn
Thornton - Gregory
Campbell - Daniel
Paille
Chris
Bourque
Defensemen
Zdeno
Chara - Johnny
Boychuk
Dennis
Seidenberg - Dougie
Hamilton
Andrew
Ference - Adam
McQuaid
Matt
Bartkowski
Goaltenders
Tuukka
Rask
Anton
Khudobin
NOTES:
Horton is expected to be healthy for training camp, and having him
puts everyone back in the roles where they were in the first half of
the 2011-12 season when the Bruins tore through the League like few
teams in history (winning 18 of 21 at one point). The Bergeron line
might already be the team's top line, but expect it to be confirmed
this season if Seguin and Marchand continue to improve. There are
five defensemen who look set, but the sixth could shuffle the
pairings. If Hamilton is ready, it's hard to think the job won't be
his, and expect him to be paired with one of the top guys for a
proper apprenticeship. The other candidates include Bartkowski, Colby
Cohen, David
Warsofsky and Torey
Krug. If the sixth comes from that group, he might be put with
McQuaid as part of a more traditional third pairing. If Thomas really
sits out the season, this is Rask's chance to prove he's a No. 1, and
the one-year contract he accepted this offseason could look like a
smart move for him. It will be interesting to see how much Claude
Julien uses Khudobin, who has great NHL numbers (albeit in seven
career games) and whose American Hockey League resume has improved in
the past two campaigns.
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