The Bruins dominated in nearly every category on Wednesday night in Game 1 of the playoffs against the Maple Leafs. The only bad news for the B’s came after the game, when defenseman Andrew Ference was suspended for one game for throwing an elbow at the face of Toronto’s Mikhail Grabovski.

Ference will sit out of Game 2 against the Maple Leafs on Saturday night to fulfill his punishment from the NHL, and the defenseman’s only opinion on the matter is that he is already looking forward to Game 3.

Hear what Ference had to say in the video above.

Ray Bourque made his Bruins debut in 1979. The last postseason meeting between the B’s and Maple Leafs came five years before that.

The longtime rivals finally end that 39-year drought Tuesday night at TD Garden, and Bourque joined the Big Bad Bruins Live crew before Game 1 to give his take on the rivalry and the series.

Check out what the Hall of Famer had to say in the video above.

Many Bruins fans forget, but the team was without Nathan Horton during last season’s first-round series loss to Washington. In fact, the winger has not seen the ice in the playoffs since Game 3 of the 2011 Stanley Cup Final, when he was famously cheap-shotted by Vancouver’s Aaron Rome.

Horton missed the final 36 games of 2011-12 and the entire postseason with a concussion, and he sat the final the final five games of this season after being injured in a fight with Pittsburgh’s Jarome Iginla. He will be back in action Wednesday night, though, as he’ll skate in his usual spot on the first line alongside Milan Lucic and David Krejci when the Bruins open their first-round series against the Maple Leafs.

Check out what Horton and his teammates had to say before Wednesday’s playoff opener in the video above.

“Thank you, Kessel” is a popular refrain around Boston any time the B’s and Maple Leafs square off, and that won’t change as the two face off in the playoffs.

However, a more discerning fan will note that Boston and Toronto are linked by more than just the trade that sent Phil Kessel north in exchange for draft picks that turned into Tyler Seguin and Dougie Hamilton. Bruins general manager Peter Chiarelli has a long history with the Leafs franchise and has never been shy about pulling the trigger on a deal with the division rival.

Check out the video above to see why that might be.

The Bruins are back in the postseason for the sixth consecutive season and they have their sights set on the No. 2 seed in the Eastern Conference Playoff standings. With a win against the Ottawa Senators on Sunday night, the Bruins can capture the Northeast Division title and be in a solid position heading into the playoffs.

From Dougie Hamilton‘s stellar NHL debut to Tuukka Rask‘s acrobatic saves in the cage, there are a lot of memorable moments from the Bruins’ 2013 campaign.

Check out the video above to see some of the highlights from the lockout-shortened regular season.

Points are precious to the Bruins heading down the final stretch of the regular season.

The Bruins sit atop the Northeast Division and can clinch the division and the No. 2 seed if they beat the Capitals and the Canadiens lose to the Maple Leafs. Though the B’s have battled inconsistency recently, they are prepared to kick things into gear — even going so far as to treat Saturday night’s game against the Capitals like a playoff game.

Goalie Tuukka Rask said everyone on the team is prepared to do what it takes.

To hear what else the Bruins think of Saturday night’s game, check out the video above.

Chris Kelly will make his return to the ice Monday night at TD Garden.

It was less than a month ago that a Chris Neil hit dropped Kelly to the ice in Ottawa, breaking the forward’s tibia and sending him to the injured-reserve list. It was speculated at the time that Kelly might miss the remainder of the regular season, but the center recovered quickly and will be in the lineup for the Bruins’ home tilt with Carolina.

Kelly will return to his usual spot on the team’s third line, but he will be playing between two new linemates. Head coach Claude Julien shuffled his lines prior to Monday’s game, placing usual fourth-liner Daniel Paille and Tyler Seguin (usually of the second line) alongside Kelly on the third unit.

For more on Kelly’s return and a look at the full lineup, check out the video above.

For Bruins fans, 2011 was a good year. The B’s won the Stanley Cup for the first time since 1972, and they struck gold in the NHL entry draft, selecting defenseman Dougie Hamilton with the 9th overall pick.

Hamilton spent 2012 playing in the OHL, joining the Bruins’ blue line this year at age 19. He’s already made his presence felt with a breakout performance against the Maple Leafs in March, and with a lot more hockey potentially ahead of him, he can only get better from here.

Check out the video above to hear more on the rookie defenseman.

Jarome Iginla will not be donning the spoked-B any time soon and the Lightning have shot down trade talk involving Martin St. Louis, but that does not mean the Bruins cannot still dream big as the NHL trade deadline approaches.

Brian Campbell is the solid defenseman the Bruins could use, but the Panthers might need some convincing to part with him. Calgary’s Jay Bouwmeester, San Jose’s Dan Boyle and the Islanders’ Brad Boyes are also names Bruins fans should watch this week.

Check out some potential Bruins trade targets being discussed by Dale Arnold and Barry Pederson in the video above, then tune in for NESN’s special trade deadline coverage Wednesday starting at 2 p.m.

The Bruins were able to pull out a win over the Senators Thursday night, lifting their road trip record to 2-1. The B’s dropped games to the Jets and Penguins last week to start off their four-game road trip.

Dennis Seidenberg scored the game-winner in the final minutes of Thursday’s matchup, capping off a must-win game in order for the Bruins to change the direction of their momentum heading into the second half of their road trip. That exhaustive second effort is just what Daniel Paille says is one of the team’s biggest focuses, even in a loss.

Though the win may not have come easily, Zdeno Chara recognized his team’s toughness.

“Sometimes … you have to fight and do whatever you can to win games,” he said.

Check out what else Paille and Chara had to say in the video above.

Including Saturday’s matchup against the Capitals, the Bruins have four games in six days. They’ve reached a very difficult part of their schedule where they only have one two-day break left in late March.

This week, the B’s face the Caps, Penguins, Jets and Senators. Boston lost a three-goal lead to Washington on March 5, and the Capitals eventually beat them in overtime. The Bruins suffered a similar fate to the Penguins on Tuesday, losing 3-2. Boston takes on Pittsburgh again on Sunday, and even without Evgeni Malkin, the Penguins are still a tough matchup.

The Bruins will go for a season sweep of the Jets on Tuesday in Winnipeg, and then they travel to Ottawa, where they’ve won 10 straight, to take on the Senators. Check out what to expect from the Bruins this week in the video above.

With the April 3 trade deadline approaching, it’s time to brainstorm some names that could help the Bruins during the last month of the season and into the playoffs.

NESN’s Gord Kluzak thinks the Bruins could target Jarome Iginla of the Flames or Daniel Alfredsson of the Senators before the trade deadline. Kluzak thinks either player could help the Bruins on the power play.

Another player that could help the Bruins is Carl Soderberg. He has expressed interest in coming over to the NHL from Sweden after the SEL playoffs are over, and the Bruins hold his rights.

Watch the video above to hear Kluzak, Dale Arnold and Barry Pederson discuss the moves the Bruins could make at the trade deadline and how Soderberg could fit in with Boston.

Thumbnail photo via Facebook/Jarome Iginla

NESN’s Dale Arnold and Barry Pederson have noticed an uptick in head shots this season, and they’re starting to question if NHL players are showing a lack of respect for one another.

Pederson thinks the lack of respect could be due to a number of causes. He said the instigator rule does not help matters, the speed of the game is not allowing players to react as quickly and playing with cages in the youth game is not making young players learn to protect themselves.

Check out the video above to hear Arnold and Pederson discuss the lack of respect they’re seeing this season.

Fans just love an underdog.

For years Shawn Thornton toiled in hockey’s minor leagues. He was almost ready to hang up the skates when the Anaheim Ducks gave him an opportunity on their Stanley Cup-winning team, and just a few years later Thornton was earning a second ring with the Bruins. Likewise, his hard-nosed style of play — and willingness to mix it up with players who outmatch his 6-foot-2, 215-pound frame — has endeared himself to Boston hockey fans.

Check out the video above for the Big Bad Spotlight shined upon Thornton.

The great thing about music is that it can be anything the artist wants, and that seems to be the mantra of The Zambonis.

But whether it be a 57-second punk rock song or a slow country ballad, all the songs of The Zambonis have one thing in common: hockey. The Bridgeport, Conn.-based band has dedicated its entire existence to the sport it loves, often using hockey as a metaphor for the trials and tribulations of life, and almost always hitting the right note doing it.

Check out the video above for a special feature on this “hockey rock” band.

Photo via Facebook/The Zambonis

The U.S. Olympic hockey team won’t get to avenge its gold-medal game loss to Canada until next February, but another group will be representing the nation against some of the best in the world much sooner than that.

The World Deaf Ice Hockey Championships begin on March 30 in Finland, and NESN’s Jamison Coyle brings you an inside look at the U.S. squad that will be competing. The players, which include several New England natives, discuss the non-verbal tactics they employ to allow them to compete at a high level, as well as their desire to introduce the sport to hearing-impaired children around the country.

Check it out in the video above.

Despite all the off-ice drama surrounding former Bruins goaltender Tim Thomas, he is still the player who backstopped the B’s to their first Stanley Cup championship in 38 years.

That, NESN’s Gord Kluzak says, is what Thomas will be most remembered for as his career in Boston comes to a close.

“I think [the controversy] will all be lost when you look back,” Kluzak said during Big Bad Bruins LIVE Presented by DCU on Saturday. “You just see that smiling face around the Stanley Cup and you think of how competitive Tim Thomas was and what a great, great story he was.”

See more on Thomas and current Bruins netminder Tuukka Rask in the video above.

Since his days of challenging the NHL’s elite enforcers as a 19-year-old rookie, Milan Lucic has been a fan favorite in Boston.

As a big, bruising winger, Lucic immediately drew comparisons to Bruins great Cam Neely, whom Lucic says revolutionized the role of a power forward. That’s a lot of pressure to be placed on a player in his first season, but the Vancouver native has lived up to every expectation, setting himself apart with both his stick and his fists.

Take a look back at Lucic’s career in the video above from Big Bad Bruins Live Presented by DCU.

Over the years the Bruins have seen some of the NHL’s all-time great defensemen suit up in the black and gold, and captain Zdeno Chara is just the latest to follow in that tradition.

The 6-foot-9, 255-pound Chara has learned over the years to use every inch of that lanky frame to his advantage, becoming not only one of the most fearsome physical presences in hockey, but using that reach as a smart defender and adept poke-checker. However, he’s also one of the league’s best from the point, and an invaluable asset on the power play because of that heavy shot. And, of course, that’s to say nothing of his by-example leadership on and off the ice.

Check out the video above as the Big Bad Bruins Live Presented by DCU spotlight lands on Chara.

Before the puck dropped for Saturday night’s NHL season opener, Bruins owner Jeremy Jacobs took the chance to address the media regarding the lockout that swallowed the team’s first 34 games.

Jacobs admitted that the work stoppage was detrimental to both the owners and the players, but the ability to salvage a season prevented it from being fully disastrous.

“Let me make this observation,” he said. “Nobody won, but more importantly, nobody lost at this point.”

Many fans and media members had been critical of NHL commissioner Gary Bettman’s role in the negotiations throughout the lockout, but Jacobs was effusive in his praise of the commissioner.

“This game has thrived with Gary Bettman as commissioner,” Jacobs said. “He’s moved it every year. He’s brought new technology, he’s brought new ideas to it and all. He’s probably brought a little bit of an abrasive personality with it. Not everybody loves him, and that’s to be understood. But he’s done a yeoman’s job and worked his butt off. You can’t outwork Gary, and for that I’m very happy that he was there. This agreement would not have gotten done without Gary Bettman.”

See more of Jacobs’ comments in the video above.