Category — Boston Bruins

Ference/By S. Bradley

Well, no one can accuse my readers of sitting back and ignoring the Bruins, even in the dog days of July.

I put out the call for mailbag questions and received enough to fill two entire posts – or even more. Most of you want to know about Blake Wheeler, Michael Ryder, Tuukka Rask, Tim Thomas and Marc Savard. Even in the middle of summer, these topics are hot. So without further ado, here’s Part I of my mailbag.

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Caron/By S. Bradley

A fractured collarbone cost the Bruins a chance to see what Jordan Caron could do last fall. But a solid return to his junior team, plus a strong showing at the World Junior Championship and this summer’s development camp proved to the club that it has a future player.

The ’09 first-round pick’s development could go one of two ways, but in either direction he should be an NHL regular real soon.

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McQuaid/By S. Bradley

The injury bug bit Boston’s back end so much in the 2009-10 season, a lot of doors of opportunity opened for a young defenseman to grad some NHL experience.

Adam McQuaid barged right through that door and proved he could be a pretty reliable third-pair player.

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Chara/By S. Bradley

We all know that Bruins captain Zdeno Chara played almost the entire 2009-10 season with an ugly dislocated pinky finger . After it hindered him for a while, he seemed to get used to it and was his old self for most of the second two thirds of the campaign.

Now it looks like he’s really going to have to get used to it.

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Hamill

If ’08 first-round pick Joe Colborne and ’09 first-rounder Jordan Caron were overshadowed at this summer’s development camp by 2010 No. 2 overall pick Tyler Seguin, imagine how ’07 first-round pick Zach Hamill must be feeling about his pecking order in the organization.

With two-plus pro seasons now under his belt, the center looks like he has been leapfrogged on the depth chart.

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Wheeler/By S. Bradley

Believe it or not, there has been NHL news not involving Ilya Kovalchuk and the New Jersey Devils.

And in fact, two particular bits of news might affect the Bruins and their efforts to get restricted free agent winger Blake Wheeler signed.

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Everyone who breathes is weighing in on the NHL’s decision to void Ilya Kovalchuk’s 17-year deal with New Jersey.

Here are two Bruins-related thoughts on the matter from me.

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Bodnarchuk

There always seems to be room in the NHL for a defensive defenseman with a gritty side.

Andrew Bodnarchuk hopes that continues to be the case, and that his lack of size doesn’t leave him behind.

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Perhaps disappointingly, it didn’t take a high-speed drive away from pursuing Soviet agents to get Yuri Alexandrov to the Bruins the way the Buffalo Sabres once spirited Alexander Mogilny away from his home country’s national team.

All it took was a contract and a plane flight to get the Russian in Boston and add to the Bruins’ depth on defense.

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OK, folks. Traffic is at an all-time high — especially for the time of year and the amount of non-activity around the team — at TheBruinsBlog.net.

So what better time than now to do an old-fashioned mailbag? You send the questions and I’ll try to provide the answers. Maybe I’ll even find a prize for the best question (no promises).

This only works if you become an active participant, so click this link and send me your questions. And next week I’ll post some answers.

Penner

When you’re 5-foot-10, 191 pounds and playing defense in pro hockey, your size is always going to be a cause for question marks about your potential.

Jeff Penner is slowly but surely quieting those who criticize him as too small.

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Your comments on my blog posts are one of my favorite things about running this site.

Now I’m going to give you, my readers, the opportunity to weigh in in even longer form.

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Devils fans can still wear Kovy t-shirts

The first shoe has finally dropped, the first domino has finally tipped over … whatever cliche you want to use, at least it’s finally over.

As you’ve no doubt heard by now, Ilya Kovalchuk finally decided that he’d rather New Jersey make him filthy rich instead of Los Angeles.

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Dalton

I’m not dreaming of some fairy-tale ascension of the undrafted college free agent from the ranks of the ECHL to the NHL and then superstar status.

But I wanted to include a goaltender on this list, and based on his career experience I think Matt Dalton is currently the closest to at least earning a chance to be Boston’s backup.

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You might have deduced based on yesterday’s poll question that it’s time to take a glance at the Bruins’ prospect pool and determine which players are closest to making an impact at the NHL level.

And that’s just what I’m going to do over the next few days.

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