BOSTON — Bobby Robins is a great example of a player never giving up on his dream to one day play in the NHL.
After a great preseason, the 32-year-old forward has made his first opening-night roster and could make his Boston debut Wednesday night when the Bruins open the 2014-15 campaign against the Philadelphia Flyers at TD Garden.
“Well I think there’s a couple things here,” Bruins head coach Claude Julien said Tuesday at a media day press conference. “I don’t think the fact that the game is evolving and fighting has necessarily disappeared and we know (Robins) can handle himself well. But more than that, he’s a guy that in preseason games has given our team some energy.
“He’s shown that he can still play. He made some good plays. His hands aren’t bad and he finishes all his checks. We talk about being a team that’s hard to play against and want to be a bit more of a physical team, I think he fits that mold really well. I don’t want people thinking the only reason he’s here is that he’s not afraid to drop the gloves. I think there’s a lot more to him and the part I haven’t talked about either is the fact that he’s a great individual that’s very well liked already in our dressing room. He’s fit in well.”
Robins has spent the last nine seasons playing in the AHL, ECHL and Austria — posting an astounding 800 penalty minutes in 280 American League games. He’s played with the Providence Bruins (AHL) for the last two-and-a-half seasons.
The most likely role for Robins in Boston is right wing on the fourth line. Shawn Thornton’s departure as a free agent in the offseason has created a vacant spot, and Robins plays a similar style.
— Loui Eriksson is expected to start the campaign at right wing on the first line next to David Krejci and Milan Lucic — the spot veteran winger Jarome Iginla occupied last season. With that said, nothing is set in stone at this point.
“We haven’t made that decision yet so there’s still some things we have to look at,” Julien said. “Certainly he’s one of the guys we think can be a fit. I think right now we have to give him that opportunity too to get acquainted. It may take some time and we may change our mind. Basically we’re gonna look at and keep an eye on it closely and see if it’s worth pursuing or whether we want to move things around, so that decision hasn’t been necessarily made yet.
— Krejci left Saturday’s game against the Detroit Red Wings in the second period after a collision with the boards. He didn’t return to the game. Krejci said Tuesday that he’s “close” to returning, but his status for Wednesday’s season opener is uncertain.
“He’s still considered I think minor,” Julien said. “We were told originally that it was really a minor injury and we didn’t think much of it. It hasn’t healed as well as we thought it would. As far as tomorrow we’ll have to see how he feels so it’s one of those injuries that could be a questionable one. We’ll have to reassess with our trainers. Again I got off the ice and came right here so I don’t have more details than what I had before our morning skate.”
— Simon Gagne was with the Bruins during training camp and preseason on a tryout deal, and he hasn’t been signed yet. However, it’s still possible that the veteran winger could play for the Bruins at some point.
“He’s gonna stick around and he’s gonna continue to skate with us and travel with us,” Bruins general manager Peter Chiarelli said. “He’s getting better and we’ll see where it goes in a short period of time. I don’t want to give you everything. He likes what he’s seeing and he’s certainly a player that if he can get close to what he was before he’ll be a helpful player.”
— Chiarelli has acknowledged in the past that the Bruins use analytics. On Tuesday, he talked about the league’s approach to advanced stats.
“From the league perspective I know that they’re looking closely at a couple of groups that they want to line themselves with — they may have actually entered an agreement with a group where whether it’s GPS technology or something they’re gonna have a whole new bucket, sort of speak, or stats and metrics,” Chiarelli said.
“They’re moving in what I consider the right direction so we’ll have players motion, players location and all that stuff in certain situations. We’ve, this summer, memorialized our stats or analytics department. We’ve always used it, from a hockey ops perspective I know the coaching staff has a pretty good set of metrics that they use after each game and after a number of segments. We’re digging even deeper. I think that there’s a role for it. It’s a piece of information that’s useful. We’ve got a staff that looks at it, we meet every week. We have an exhaustive analytics report following every game and following every two-week segment. We feel strongly about it. We’re not hanging our hat on it. It’s an important piece of information. At the end of the day you still have to evaluate, you still have to see the player and look at all the intangibles.”
The B’s finished in the top five of several advanced stats en route to winning the Presidents’ Trophy in 2013-14.
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— Patrice Bergeron is aware of analytics, but doesn’t follow it much.
“No, I don’t,” the Bruins center said when asked if he pays attention to advanced stats. “I think it’s a new thing that I don’t necessarily know everything about, I don’t take any notes or pay attention to it really.”
