BOSTON — The name Nate Thompson should be familiar to Bruins fans. It certainly will be after the Eastern Conference Final is completed in the coming weeks.
Thompson was originally drafted by Boston in the sixth round back in 2003. He played three seasons in Providence and made it up to Boston for four games in 2006-07. He earned a reputation as a hard-working, dependable two-way forward in those years, but didn't really make a name for himself until this season in Tampa Bay.
Actually, he's earned a few names with the Lightning after a breakthrough season this year with 10-15-25 totals, 115 hits and 81 blocked shots in 79 regular-season games.
"The boys call him Nate Boucher," Lightning first-year coach Guy Boucher said in reference to the good-natured ribbing Thompson gets for all the praise Boucher has heaped on the versatile forward throughout the season.
Boucher himself, however, has another nickname for Thompson.
"I call him 'Textbook,'" Boucher said. "I call him 'Textbook' because when you deal with him, you're going to get exactly what you ask. That's rare. Since I've called him that, the guys put a sign in his locker 'Nate Boucher.' That's why I want to go on about him, but I have to watch out."
Thompson knows he gets some grief for always doing what the coach asks, but he knows that everyone performing their role as designed has been a key to the Lightning's success this year.
"I get a lot of flak for that," Thompson said. "I think coming into the year it was a new management, new coaching staff and new everything this year, so I wanted to make sure I made a good first impression. They gave me a great opportunity and I just tried to make the most of it. But 'Nate Boucher' and the 'Textbook' thing, I guess I've been doing that this year, but there's been a lot of help from all of the guys. You can't do that without a good team so I'd have to say everyone else in here is 'Textbook' too, not just me."
Thompson certainly did make a good first impression, with his work on his skating forcing Boucher to rethink the scouting reports on him.
"He's a player, first of all, I was extremely surprised by in training camp," Boucher said. "I heard about him. I was told that he didn't have great speed, but he was working hard. But then when he got to training camp, he seemed fast to me. So I figured maybe he's just because I'm a rookie coach. But everybody told me he progressed over the summer, worked hard on his speed. I think right now he's a speedy guy.
"When you couple that with his relentlessness, when you couple that with his toughness and the fact that he wants it so badly, you get a player that's going to give you so much, not just defensively. If you look at his game, he blocks more shots than anybody. He'll pay the price. If he's injured, you'll never know it. This guy pays the ultimate price for everything."
Thompson impressed his Bruins coaches in a similar fashion, but was caught in a numbers crunch and eventually claimed on waivers by the Islanders at the start of the 2008-09 season. He ended up in Tampa on another waiver claim in January, 2010, but still remembers fondly the help he had from his Bruins coaches along the way.
"There were different coaches every year I was here, but Claude Julien was big for me," Thompson said. "Doug Houda, those guys were around for a while. Don Sweeney was big. He really helped me with my development. And obviously it goes back to the Providence guys like Scott Gordon and Rob Murray, they were big for me along the way. Other players on the team too. It was a great group of guys and a great organization."
Thompson admits he does have a little extra incentive playing against his former club, but harbors no animosity about how his time with the Bruins ended.
"It's exciting to play against them, but at the same time, I'm not really too worried about the other side," Thompson said. "I'm just focused on our team and how we play.
"It's a business," added Thompson, who has 1-2-3 totals, 24 hits and 14 blocked shots in 11 playoff games. "I have no hard feelings. It's a great organization, but now I'm here in Tampa and it's the right fit for me here."
