BOSTON — Optimism always reigns at the opening of a new season, but this year's Bruins squad has reason for the positive outlook.
The Bruins added sniper Nathan Horton and highly-touted prospect Tyler Seguin in the offseason, and are coming off drawing over 25,000 fans to the Garden for a pair of rookie games this week. The good vibes continued on Saturday as the club went through its first official on-ice workouts at the Garden.
"I was pretty pleased with it," said Bruins coach Claude Julien. "I think we had good pace going and obviously to reinforce what we talked about yesterday, our guys are showing up in pretty good shape and today, that showed up there. I like the pace and obviously we’ve got four days to kind of do the things we want to do to get our team prepared. We did a little bit of teaching there in the second half, so I thought for the first day, it was pretty smooth."
The Bruins have 57 players in camp, though four – Marc Savard, Marco Sturm, Trent Whitfield and Wyatt Smith – are currently sidelined with injuries. The remaining 53 players were split into two groups and each was put through their paces for close to two hours in separate workouts.
The lines for Group A in the morning session:
White: Jared Knight-David Krejci-Brad Marchand
Yellow: Jordan Smotherman-Zach Hamill-Nathan Horton
Blue: Jeremy Reich-Joe Colborne-Michael Ryder
Gray: Blake Wheeler-Jamie Arniel-Shawn Thornton
Orange: Lane MacDermid-Craig Cunningham-Jordan Knackstedt
Defense: Zdeno Chara-Steve Kampfer; Jeff Penner-Johnny Boychuk; Nathan McIver-Matt Hunwick, with Ryan Donald worked in with various partners. Tim Thomas, Nolan Schaefer and Adam Courchaine were the goalies.
The lines for Group B in the afternoon:
White: Daniel Paille-Patrice Bergeron-Jordan Caron
Yellow: Milan Lucic-Ryan Spooner-Kirk MacDonald
Blue: Jeff LoVecchio-Tyler Seguin-Mark Recchi
Gray: Max Sauve-Greg Campbell-Tyler Randell
Orange: Antoine Roussel-Levi Nelson-Brian McGrattan
Defense: Matt Bartkowski-Dennis Seidenberg; Mark Stuart-Yury Alexandrov; Cody Wild-Andrew Ference; Joe Rullier-Andrew Bodnarchuk. Tuukka Rask, Matt Dalton and Michael Hutchinson were in goal for that session.
With so many players in camp before the cuts begin, the combinations won't reflect the way things will look once the final roster takes shape, but there was plenty of thought put into the initial groupings.
"I think what we tried to do here was the same balance, put some experienced guys with some younger guys," said Julien. "It's important for everybody to feel like they're a part of this camp. We've got enough time here that we don’t have to put all of last year's players together and so on and so forth. I think it's important for those other guys to have those guys around them if they want to feel comfortable and improve at the same time."
Julien made sure to have one pairing in particular in place from the start, teaming top prospect Seguin with veteran Mark Recchi in the afternoon session.
"The way [Recchi] feels and the way he acts on the ice, I don't know which one's the kid to be honest with you," said Julien. "He's skating around the ice and he's got the big smile on his face, like a kid going through his first camp and that's the thing I think I admire most about Rex. He's there, he's having fun. … Hopefully his enthusiasm rubs off on Tyler. At the same time, we know that Tyler has got the right guy with him to help him grow."
Some other observations from the first day of on-ice workouts at camp:
– The good news for veteran tough guy Brian McGrattan, who has been invited to camp on a tryout is that he has a stall in the main locker room with the other Bruins veterans. The bad news is that his nameplate on Friday read "McGratton." The misspelling was fixed on Saturday.
– Joe Colborne was wearing a full cage to protect his injured face in the morning session, but participated fully in the session.
– Fellow rookie Ryan Spooner is wearing just the half-shield visor, but it was enough to protect him when Kirk MacDonald's errant shot from the slot clanged right off the top of Spooner's head in the afternoon drills. Spooner wasn't hurt on that play, but Andrew Ference did leave the practice briefly after being cut in a collision of his own. He returned and finished the session.
– The Bruins did not have an update on the condition of Marc Savard, who is sidelined indefinitely after suffering post-concussion syndrome symptoms prior to the start of camp. Savard was scheduled to meet with doctors on Friday.
– Saturday's sessions were open to the public. Sunday's workouts will be as well, with Group B taking the ice in the morning at 10 a.m. and Group B going at 12:30 p.m.
