Seguin at practice/By D. Hickling
BOSTON — The Eastern Conference champion Bruins — weird to type that — held an optional skate for about half of the roster this morning at the TD Garden.
Among the mix of veterans and rookies was last June’s No. 2 overall draft pick Tyler Seguin, who has become a lineup fixture ever since he replaced Patrice Bergeron for Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Final against Tampa Bay.
While the mood was relaxed and informal after yesterday’s day off, Seguin thinks he and his teammates are ready for business and bigger accomplishments before this season is out.
“I think everyone’s moving on. We did just win the conference finals, but we want to look at it as we just finished another round,” he said after the skate. “It does feel nice, but in the end that wasn’t the goal, that wasn’t the main goal, which is to win this round.”
Center Chris Kelly says the Bruins know the next opponent, Vancouver, might be the toughest one of all.
“Obviously we know that they’re a great team,” said Kelly. “They were first in the league, obviously, for a reason. They played well against the teams that they played in the playoffs. We know we’re up against a great hockey team.”
Head coach Claude Julien said he didn’t celebrate for all that long once the Bruins defeated the Lightning.
“The next day, obviously,” said Julien about when he started to prepare for the Canucks. “It was important for us to enjoy the moment. I think that’s, if you’re going to remember those kind of things, you have to enjoy the moment. And for me, it took me a long time to get to sleep that night, certainly for the right reason, not the wrong one. But the next day was back to work thinking about what you had to do here. We had already started doing our preparation for the Vancouver team and today was just one step in that direction.”
The Bruins will practice one more time in Boston Monday before departing for Vancouver in the afternoon. Game 1 of the 2011 Stanley Cup Final is Wednesday night, 8 p.m. EST.
TRU: You are crazy if you think we should change the lines now. You have to run with what got you here.
I think Claude will be subtle with Recchi. The fourth line with Rex and Soup is going to have some issues but they’ll hardly play. I think he won’t out and out demote Recchi but relieving him with Pevs is his best option.
The only change I want to see is Recchi to the fourth line. I love the guy, but Peverley at this point in time brings so much more to the table.
I don’t see any major line changes other than perhaps (one can only hope) for Peverly with Bergeron and Marchand.
I do agree that Peverly centering Marchand and Seguin would be a speedy and very offensively strong line, but I don’t see it happening.
I think for game 1 the B’s go with what has worked, but Recchi on the second line is like putting a ball and chain around Bergeron and Marchand’s legs-he just can’t keep up and it is hard to get a good offensive cycle going if one of the forwards is behind the play.
@tru – I’d say the Bruins DO have a 1st line and they’re heating up at the right time. I don’t see how those line changes improve our chances. Although, Pev centering Marchand and Seguin is intriguing – they would fly…maybe next year.
my concern for now is that the Canucks have a first line and three third lines and the Bruins have a second line, two third lines and a fourth line. knowing fully well that Julien isn’t about to pre-adjust, I would be pleasantly shocked to see some defensive changes and the unveiling of a first line, two second lines and a fourth through some consolidation like:
BER/KRE/HOR
LUC/KEL/RYD
MAR/PEV/SEG
PAI/CAM/REC(THOR)
CHA/SEI
FER/MCQ
KAM(KAB)/BOY
THOM(RAS)
hoping mtl was the hardest part. none of the other series had me drinking tequila out of a bottle.
I am kind of surprised they went with an optional skate today, but am looking forward to Wednesday. Not sure it can get here fast enough. This seems like a pretty long break between the conference final round and the SCF round.
I think this could turn out to be a pretty good series. While fans may not take one team or the other all that seriously I am pretty sure the players for both teams realize there are no cakewalks in the playoffs-especially with the Stanley Cup on the line.