Bruins and the Draft

The Bruins have done a good job in recent years in making the best of their draft picks. Many recently drafted players are still in juniors or developing in Providence, but a few current players have been bred and raised as purebred Bruins.

Of the 22 active players on the Bruins current roster, 21 have been drafted and 1 (Rich Peverley) is undrafted. Of the 21 drafted players on the roster, 6 have been drafted by the Bruins (Lucic, Krejci, Bergeron, Caron, Marchand, Seguin), 2 by Toronto (Thornton, Rask), 2 more by Florida (Campbell, Horton), and a combination of another 11 teams (1 of which nolonger exists – the Quebec Nordiques, who drafted Tim Thomas 217th overall in 1994).

Brad Marchand Pure Hockey Commercial

NHL on NBC Parody Promo

This is very outdated, but still hilarious!

Bruins and Nationality

During the finals last season, the Vancouver Canucks became “Canada’s team”. A Canadian-based team hasn’t won the Stanley Cup since Montreal inb 1993, and recent finals appearances from Calgary, Ottawa, and Edmonton were ultimately nowhere near as hyped up as this finals series was. Canada was excited to have a Canadian-based team bring the Cup home and the Canucks were the favorite, which facilitated more nationality-based excitement. The ironic part of having the entire country of Canada routing for the Canucks, “Canada’s team”, against the Boston Bruins (who, by default, were “America’s team”) was the fact that the Bruins had and still have more Canadians on their roster than just about any other team in the NHL. During the finals, every single Bruins player was Canadian except for American goalie Tim Thomas, German defenseman Dennis Seidenberg, Slovak defenseman and team captain Zdeno Chara, rental player and Czech defenseman Tomas Kaberle, and Czech forward David Krejci.

Vancouver, meanwhile, was largely represented by non-Canadian players as well, including their captain and his twin, the Swedish Sedins, German defenseman Christian Ehrhoff, Sami Salo of Finland, and Americans Keith Ballard, Cory Schneider, and Ryan Kesler, to name a few. Both Boston and Vancouver were captained by European players, but the Bruins impact players represented the majority of Canada – literally. The Bruins roster in the finals included Canadians from almost every province: Milan Lucic and Mark Recchi of British Columbia, Ference and Boychuk of Alberta, Shane Hnidy of Saskatchewan, Michael Ryder of Newfoundland, Adam McQuaid of Prince Edward Island, Brad Marchand of Nova Scotia, Patrice Bergeron of Quebec, and a handful of players from Ontario (Recchi, Horton, Seguin, Peverley, Kelly, Campbell, Thornton, and Paille). Furthermore, Patrice Bergeron was a fellow Gold-medal winner in the Vancouver 2010 Olympics along with Roberto Luongo. Bruins coach Julien and President Neely are also Canadians.

No matter how you look at it, the idea of an NHL team belonging to a specific national identity is irrational.

The Bruins of the current 2011-2012 season are a similar mosaic of Canadian players with a few other nationalities thrown in. About 68% of the team is Canadian, 14% American, and 1% each German, Czech, Slovak, and Finnish. Of the Canadian players, 53% are from Ontario, 13% from Quebec and Alberta each, and about 6% each from British Columbia, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island.

The positions played by each player is interesting to note. Only Bruins forwards are from Ontario – the goaltenders are either American or Finnish, and the defensemen are either American, German, Slovak, or Canadians from Alberta or Prince Edward Island. Krejci also remains the lone non-Canadian, European forward.

Since the departure of PJ Axelsson a few seasons ago, the Bruins have yet to put another Swedish player on the roster. The absence of Swedes and Russians and the sparsity of Europeans in general is a unique statistical anomaly for the Bruins. It could perhaps be explained by the fact that the Bruins style of play is physical and rough, which is typically a style of play more exclusive to North American-bred players. The disparity of nationalities on the Bruins roster is definitely worth noting, but doesn’t appear to be negative or overly positive. It just is.

NHL Realignment

The Board of Governor's approved NHL re-alignment to take effect next season. The 30 teams will be divided into 4 conferences; 2 of those conferences will have 8 teams and the other 2 will have 7 teams. The Bruins are in a 7-team conference with their current divisional partners (Ottawa, Montreal, Toronto, and Buffalo) along with the new additions of both Florida teams (Lightning and Panthers).

Gregory Campbell on Faceoffs

Bruins Center Gregory Campbell Breaks Down Art of Faceoff as Part of Game Within Game

 

Draws are an art, and if you ask anybody, even the top guys still don't have it figured out. It's a lot of practice. It's something that you have to take pride in, because it's a big part of the game.

I think it's a lot of reading the opposing players. Other players have different tendencies. If you're going against like [Tomas] Plekanec from Montreal, he tends to tie up and kind of block your stick from sweeping through and uses his feet. I think you have to be able to adjust throughout the course of the game.

It's more just experience playing against guys. Whether you're on your forehand or your backhand you have to adjust as well. If somebody is doing something, you might want to talk it over with your wingers or defensemen and say listen, 'This guy's been tying my stick up all night.' So that creates a battle there so just come in and help. Because a lot of times if you're not going to win it clean you need help from your linemates or the two defensemen.

It's definitely a five-man responsibility. Obviously the center bears it on his shoulders the most and gets credit for it and when he loses it gets the blame, but your linemates have to show some awareness with being quick to jump in there. A lot of times it's a stalemate there where the puck's just laying there and you need that extra help from the wingers. Any center will tell you that the success of the center has a lot to do with the wingers and the defensemen.

Obviously it helps me a lot working on it. We do it always after morning game-day skates, and we have some pretty good faceoff men on this team. Bergy is one of the best, Bergy, Kells and Pevs are all extremely good at it. They've been working at it for a long time, so I try to learn from them.

I think it helps. Right now we have two righties playing center and two lefties playing center, so I think Claude does a good job of reading the game, seeing who's doing well on that particular night and putting us out there in situations where we're going to succeed. Sometimes it's tough for a lefty to go out there on his weak side against somebody that's good on draws who's on his strong side. So he'll put out two righties and if one gets kicked out he has confidence that the other can go in and win it. We also have the ability to have more than one natural centerman on a few lines, so that's something that helps too.

I think in the offensive zone sometimes you're more creative. You set up a play off a draw. In the offensive zone it's more about getting the win, and winning it clean. In the defensive zone it doesn't matter if you tie up, as long as you get the help. You just don't want to lose it clean. In the offensive zone sometimes you want to go forward and make a play off it that way, but in the defensive zone it's all about not losing it clean.

Some linesmen are more strict than others. They won't let you cheat as much. And every centerman in the league cheats. That's something that you have to kind of push your limits to see what you can get away with. Worst-case scenario you get kicked out, but there's always a little battle in the faceoff circle with the two centermen trying to get leverage and trying to get your stick in there, your head in there, your body in there and disrupt his stride. Most linesmen are consistent, but you defini
tely want to be aware of that.

Merry Cammi-mas