Brad Marchand, Tyler Seguin and Chris Kelly gearing up for a game. (Photo Credit: Stephanni Phillips)
With the announcement of the NHL lockout finally coming to an end after 113 days, the Boston Bruins players are flooding the Boston once again, as they should have been doing back in September. A handful of Bruins participated in skating yesterday at Boston University and shared some emotions afterwards:
Tyler Seguin: When asked what the best thing returning to Boston “Being back with the boys.”
Andrew Ference: “There’s a lot of pride in pulling on that jersey.”
Milan Lucic: told media he can’t wait to play at teh TD Garden in front of fans, “We thrive off their support, we thrive off their energy.”
Dennis Seidenberg: stated that he is happy to be back in Boston and to “see all of the guys again.”
As it was presumed, the Bruins are just as anxious to be back in Boston as the fans are to have them back. As previously reported on A Cup A Bruin, a shortened-season should be quite beneficial to the Bruins. With the Bruins having the most amount of players overseas along with the Philadelphia Flyers (each had 11 players in Europe), they were able to remain in great physical condition and ready themselves for the game to come back. The players that chose not to go overseas are a stronger disadvantage in the sense that they haven’t take a game-like hit in the better part of nine months. On top of their physical condition, Bruins forwards also proved that they are capable and ready to give big name players like Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Steven Stamkos and Alexandre Ovechkin a run for their money as they posted insane totals for their respective clubs overseas.
Tuukka Rask is also stepping up to the plate in filling the number one goaltender skates. Today as he stood between the pipes for an unofficial practice with teammates, he was chirped at for playing “too well.”
“I played against him over in the Czech League over the last few months and Tuukka was dominant,” said Andrew Ference. “The team he was playing on wasn’t very good, so he was really carrying them. That’s an encouraging sign for us.” (via CSNNE.com)
“I haven’t seen the schedule yet, but I’m assuming it’s going to be every other day,” said Rask, who finished with a .929 save percentage and a 2.05 goals against average in 23 games for the Bruins last season. “So the workload is going to be big, but that’s why you work out so hard in the summertime. As a goalie it will be a tough challenge physically and mentally. I went to play overseas to stay sharp and stay in game shape, so it won’t be an issue for me. Whether it’s 48 or 50 games that we play, I’m sure it’s going to feel like a full season when we’re done with it.” (via CSNNE.com)
With the season only being 48-50 games, there is little to no room for error. The Bruins can’t head into this season as they did 2011-2012 where they only won 3 games out of the entire month of October.
“It’s definitely going to be sloppy hockey to start off the season,” Milan Lucic told ESPN Boston, ” It’s going to be awesome. With less games becomes a sprint right away and every game means so much more.”
While a shortage of season is brutal to fans and players alike suffering from an already long off-season, some hockey is better than no hockey at all. For now we just have to sit and wait until the schedule is released.
A Cup A Bruin 