Would you buy a Snuggie from Claude Julien?

BOSTON — Boston Bruins head coach Claude Julien was at it again tonight. When his team needed a jolt offensively, he switched up the lines. When his team needed a breather after an icing, he called a timeout to save the day.

It was all in a night’s work for the Jack Adams Trophy finalist, who has seemingly pushed the right buttons throughout this incredible Boston Bruins season that now features the Eastern Conference’s top seed sitting ahead 1-0 in its best-of-seven conference semifinal with Carolina after a 4-1 win at TD Banknorth Garden.

For the most part this season, Julien has kept the centers and right wingers together and moved around the left wingers. And every time he makes a change, goal production follows. Tonight he went back to the alignment that worked best when the Bruins were building their insurmountable conference lead in December and January, in particular with Milan Lucic joining Marc Savard and Phil Kessel. That combination paid instant dividends early in the second period, right after the realignment took place, with Boston’s go-ahead goal 7:21 into the middle period.

“I guess you want me to say it’s a skillful decision, but it’s probably a little bit of luck too I think,” said Savard with a chuckle. “But he’s done that all year. And he seems to pull the right numbers out of the hat a lot of times and tonight was a great example of that. Maybe that’s why he’s up for coach of the year? There’s a lot of reasons and that’s probably one of them.” (more…)

Ference

BOSTON — You may remember that Andrew Ference hadn’t played a game since April 4 before tonight’s Game 1 of the Boston Bruins’ Eastern Conference semifinal series with Carolina at TD Banknorth Garden.

But if you watched the Bruins’ 4-1 win and didn’t know the history of Ference’s undisclosed injury, you wouldn’t know there was ever anything wrong with the veteran blueliner. Ference logged 20:09 of ice time and played his typical solid, all-around game.

“I talked to coach this morning, and it was ‘we will see how it goes. If it goes well, play as normal,’” Ference said after the game. “It’s nice to get back to what I am used to. That is right around what is normal for me. Dennis (Wideman) helped me out, he carried me around a little bit out there, at the start. It was a good transition.” (more…)

Staal

During the Boston Bruins’ four-game regular season series with Carolina — all games the Bruins won — Hurricanes star forward Eric Staal managed nary a point.

In the Bruins’ 4-1 series-opening victory in the Eastern Conference semifinals at TD Banknorth Garden tonight, the Bruins’ mastery of Staal continued. The All-Star managed just two shots on net and no points in 18:12 of ice time.

“The best of how we played him is our forwards really got involved in disrupting his flow,” said Aaron Ward, who along with defense partner Zdeno Chara had the Staal assignment the whole night. “He’s a full-tilt guy. Once he gets his momentum going, he’s hard to stop. And guys got in his way and deviated his path up the ice. We didn’t do anything illegal, but we were aware of the fact that he was on the ice and we could find him wherever he was on the ice.”

While all four forward lines matched up against Staal at one point or another, Patrice Bergeron‘s trio with Chuck Kobasew and Mark Recchi got the bulk of the shifts against the Hurricanes’ top gun. (more…)

BOSTON — The Boston Bruins showed no signs tonight of the rust that was allegedly going to grow on them during their nine-day layoff after finishing off the Montreal Canadiens.

Marc Savard scored twice to lead the Bruins to a 4-1 win over Carolina in Game 1 of their Eastern Conference semifinal series at TD Banknorth Garden. You can read the complete recap at Yahoo!

The Bruins now lead the best-of-seven series, 1-0, with Game 2 scheduled for the same place and time on Sunday. Michael Ryder and Phil Kessel now have at least one point in all five of Boston’s postseason games.

BOSTON — As expected the goaltending matchup for Game 1 of this Eastern Conference semifinal series between the Boston Bruins and Carolina Hurricanes will be Tim Thomas for the Bruins against Cam Ward.

Thomas compiled a .946 save percentage against Montreal in the first round, while Ward was right behind with a .938. Ward also set a Hurricanes record with 227 saves in the seven games against New Jersey in the conference quarterfinals.

Here are the Bruins’ lines and D pairs as per warm-ups:

Axelsson-Savard-Kessel
Recchi-Bergeron-Kobasew
Lucic-Krejci-Ryder
Thornton-Yelle-Wheeler

Chara-Ward
Ference-Wideman
Stuart-Montador

Based on that, Shane Hnidy and Byron Bitz will be the healthy scratches. I’ll have complete coverage after the game. And barring an overtime, you can here me on XM Home Ice at around 11:30 p.m.

BOSTON — When it comes to how a long layoff after a short playoff series affects a team, the Boston Bruins can take a mixed lesson from the exploits of the 2006 Carolina Hurricanes, who went on to win the Stanley Cup.

That spring, the Hurricanes — who visit TD Banknorth Garden tonight for Game 1 of an Eastern Conference semifinal series — downed New Jersey in five games in the second round and didn’t get back into action for six days before opening their conference finals series with Buffalo. The ‘Canes lost the first game, but won the series in seven.

This group of ‘Canes will be looking to take advantage of any weakness the Bruins show in the first few minutes of their first game in nine days.

“I remember in ’06, we beat the Devils in five and we had, I think, a week off as well. That’s not easy to do, coming into the next series and to play a team that’s been playing a lot of hockey,” Carolina star center Eric Staal said during his team’s media availability this morning. “And we need to take advantage of that. Not to say it’s going to be easy for us. We need to make sure that we’re working and have our skating legs and hopefully get on the attack on them early in the game and get on them.” (more…)

Julien

Last season, Boston Bruins head coach Claude Julien took a team most experts left for dead before the regular season started and led the Black and Gold to their first postseason berth in four years. But the NHL Broadcasters’ Association didn’t acknowledge Julien’s job when the finalists for the Jack Adams Trophy as coach of the year were selected.

This time around, Julien and the work he did to get the Bruins to win the top seed in the Eastern Conference nearly wire to wire finally during the 2008-09 season got a little respect. Julien was announced as a finalist for this year’s Jack Adams Trophy along with San Jose head coach Todd McClellan and St. Louis bench boss Andy Murray.

If you want to know who should win this award, just look at the candidates and think about which one’s team is still playing in the Stanley Cup playoffs and which ones are going golfing. (more…)

Vancouver set an example for the Bruins.

WILMINGTON, Mass. — Watching the Vancouver Canucks beat the Chicago Blackhawks in Game 1 of their Western Conference semifinal series last night proved to be a learning experience for the Boston Bruins.

Those Bruins players who chose to flip on the game got to see that getting back into action after a nine-day layoff isn’t as difficult as some might think.

“They came out hard to start the game. I thought they had a real good first two periods,” said Bruins winger Milan Lucic after the club held its morning skate at Ristuccia Arena. “And obviously Chicago showed a lot of character coming back to make that 3-3. But I mean, they had the same number of days off as we did and came out hard. So it just shows we can’t have any excuses and we have to go out there and play hard.”

The Bruins will host the Carolina Hurricanes at TD Banknorth Garden tonight in Game 1 of an Eastern Conference semifinal series after not playing since last Wednesday. (more…)

WILMINGTON, Mass. — The Boston Bruins might add some green to their lineup tonight for Game 1 of the Eastern Conference semifinal series against Carolina at TD Banknorth Garden, but it has nothing to do with the Celtics.

Defenseman Andrew Ference, a noted environmentalist, might be in uniform for a game for the first time since he suffered an undisclosed injury April 4. Ference has been practicing with the team all week and skating for more than a week.

“The last week has been a good progression toward getting ready,” Ference said after the Bruins’ morning skate at Ristuccia Arena. “I feel ready. At the end of the day, it’s coach’s decision. I wish I could say yes or no for myself, but it’s their decision, that’s their job to determine if I’m ready.”

Head coach Claude Julien said Ference’s entrance into the lineup will be a game-time decision. Ference is hoping that he doesn’t have to watch from afar any longer.

“It’s a lot less nerve-racking to be on the ice than to watch from the box. It sucks up there,” admitted Ference. “It’s great when you’re winning, it’s nice to see. But every time the other team scores, it kills you because it’s out of your control. So I’m excited. I’m not a good spectator.”

WILMINGTON, Mass. — With Northeastern University occupying TD Banknorth Garden, the Boston Bruins are holding their morning skate at Ristuccia Arena.

The optional skate in preparation for tonight’s Game 1 of the Bruins’ Eastern Conference semifinal series with Carolina back at the Garden started with Andrew Ference making his way onto the sheet for some quick drills alone at around 10:14 a.m. He has since been joined by both goaltenders, plus Blake Wheeler, Milan Lucic, Byron Bitz, Chuck Kobasew, Dennis Wideman, Shane Hnidy, Aaron Ward and Mark Stuart.

More later.

A hockey game? Really. You mean the Boston Bruins actually get to play games?

It’s been nine days, but yes, the Bruins are finally going to start their Eastern Conference semifinal series with the Carolina Hurricanes tonight at TD Banknorth Garden after the Northeastern University commencement clears the building. Guess you can say the Bruins have graduated to the second round after matriculating for 10 years. OK, enough with the bad puns.

The Garden should be rocking like it hasn’t for the better part of the last decade. And that will be key against a Hurricanes team that doesn’t inspire the venom the Montreal Canadiens did. But like most playoff series, someone will step out of line and it won’t matter what sweater the guys are wearing — they’ll be ready to rip each other’s hearts out for a puck. (more…)

Varlamov

The Washington Capitals, who start an Eastern Conference semifinal playoff series with the Pittsburgh Penguins tomorrow, might have found the best way to make sure their rookie goaltender doesn’t get rattled: don’t talk to him.

Netminder Simeon Varlamov obviously hasn’t taken offense to the silent treatment, as he rewarded the Caps by beating the New York Rangers in a seven-game first-round series.

“Given Varlamov’s limited grasp of English, coach Bruce Boudreau said he hasn’t talked to him out of fear he would affect the goalie’s play. Even Alex Ovechkin said his conversations with Varlamov have been limited,” writes Stephen Whyno in the Washington Times today. (more…)

The Vancouver Canucks, like the Boston Bruins, had to take a sabbatical after sweeping their first-round series and starting their Western Conference semifinal series with Chicago last night.

Oddly enough, the Canucks looked fine at the outset, but then blew a 3-0 lead in the third period before closing out a 5-3 victory at GM Place in Vancouver. In a word, this game could only be classified as weird.

“So, as much as we like reason and order in our games, this one played out like a David Lynch movie where up was down, down was up and nothing was as it appeared to be,” writes Ed Willes in The Province. (more…)