They may not have won the President’s Trophy in 2011, but the Boston Bruins did manage to walk away with Stanley Cup for the first time since 1972.
And one ex-Bruin still fondly remembers his time with the “good group of guys” that made up the 2011 squad.
“You know, I look back on that now and just super grateful to be a part of that group,” Gregory Campbell told NHL Network’s “NHL Tonight” on Tuesday. “I still stay in touch with many of those guys, and for me, that (group of guys) was the part that I’m most grateful about.”
Campbell joined the Bruins for the 2010-11 season in a trade that sent him and Nathan Horton to Boston just one month after the team’s epic collapse in the 2010 Eastern Conference finals. The former Bruin knew this would give him the opportunity to play in the playoffs for the first time since 2003, and was “excited” and “anxious” to join a team had the talent, drive and personality to potentially win a cup.
“It was a team where I felt my job was just as important as the next guys. So obviously the character in the room … there’s a lot of character guys on the team, a lot of guys that not only said the right things but did the right things on a daily basis.”
In fact, Campbell, who now does player development for the Columbus Blue Jackets, sees plenty of similarities between the Bruins in 2011 and the 2019 team.
“This Boston team was obviously built very similar to our (2011) team, as was the St. Louis team, and they definitely relied on different guys throughout the playoffs,” he said. “… There’s different games, there’s different series I reflect back on — you know certainly lines carried us through different series at the time, and that’s what you really have to rely on when you’re going four rounds in two months of absolute battles every single night. I definitely see similarities in the way that Boston was built and the contributions they had from each and every guy, but it just kind of goes without saying with any team that goes to the Stanley Cup Finals.”
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