Bruins camp opens amid questions, high expectations

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BOSTON - Max Talbot hit the nail on the head this week when he poetically termed the Bruins an “old soul locker room” for a number of different reasons.

Battle-hardened and Stanley Cup-proven warriors such as Zdeno Chara, Patrice Bergeron, Dennis Seidenberg, David Krejci and Brad Marchand are among the eight 2011 Stanley Cup holdovers that still dot the Black and Gold roster as they gear up for the start of NHL training camp on Thursday morning. There’s clearly still enough talent for the Bruins to compete in the middle of the Eastern Conference pack, and enough there to potentially challenge for a playoff spot.

The hunger also seems to have returned to the Black and Gold dressing room. That is a vital ingredient to Boston’s success.

“I feel like we’ve got kind of an old soul locker room here,” said Talbot, who will be a “glue guy” looked at to replace some of the dressing room intangibles that were lost when personalities like Shawn Thornton and Johnny Boychuk went away. “It’s a locker room that won before, and that is still very hungry to win again. Guys are hungry this year, and disappointed about last year with that in the back of our minds. We’re ready to go.”

That should be the case, even if the argument could easily be made that Montreal, Tampa Bay, New York, Washington, Pittsburgh and the Islanders are all ahead of Boston in terms of roster strength headed into camp, and that the B’s are much more in the neighborhood of Detroit, Ottawa, Columbus and Florida as camps open across the NHL.

But those are valuations for next month when the Bruins open up their season by hosting the Winnipeg Jets Oct. 8. Instead, off-ice testing Thursday at TD Garden opens main NHL training camp, which will kick off a mad Black and Gold scramble for roster spots, along with some serious experimentation with forward lines and defense pairings.

There are myriad questions to be answered by the Bruins over the next three weeks:

Who will be on the right side with Brad Marchand and Patrice Bergeron?

Will the Bruins install Matt Beleskey into Milan Lucic’s vacant left wing spot alongside Krejci? Where will David Pastrnak find a home this season?

Who will be Chara’a partner after Dougie Hamilton was dealt to the Calgary Flames this summer? Who will win the backup goaltending job behind Tuukka Rask after Niklas Svedberg couldn’t manage to hold it down last season?

Which young defensemen are going to step up among the group of Zach Trotman, Colin Miller and Joe Morrow, and how much of a chance to shine will Claude Julien give his young blueline crew during training camp?

How will Julien and his coaching staff deal with the growing scrutiny they’re on the hot seat, starting in training camp, and that it could be a short leash for all of them this season?

The Bruins know they will have these questions and more to answer this season, but the goal remains clear and unmistakable: get better every day, and get back into Lord Stanley’s tourney after missing the cut last April for the first time in eight years.

“We’re looking forward to it. This year is definitely different with a lot of new faces, and a lot of new guys coming in,” said Bergeron, who led the B’s with 55 points last season in a stilted offensive campaign across the roster. “Camp is going to be a great chance for us to get to know each other, establish some good chemistry immediately and become a good hockey team.

“The motivation is definitely there given how things ended last year, and everybody really wants to redeem themselves, and be a better hockey team. We need to make sure we get off to a good start, and definitely feed from the things that happened last year...and the disappointment. We want to try and erase that, start fresh and have a good year.”

Is that new energy a good thing for the Black and Gold after missing the playoffs despite 96 points last season?

“I think it definitely is one of the things that we can benefit from: the fact that new guys coming in bring energy and excitement to the organization,” said Bergeron. “For us, it’s about making sure they feel comfortable with us, and vice versa. It’s nice to have some new guys in.”

While much of the dwelling will be on how last season ended, the startling summer changes to the roster and the divisive issues in the dressing room last season, there are plenty of positives for the Black and Gold as well. Bergeron, Rask and Krejci are elite players in the prime of their respective careers. Ryan Spooner, Pastrnak and Trotman are up-and-coming players relied upon to bring that jolt of youthful energy.

Chara, Seidenberg and Adam McQuaid all look like they are in phenomenal shape after a summer fueled with doubters. McQuaid in particular resembles an 18-wheeler ready to truck opponents once the season starts. There is still plenty of top-tier talent on the roster and enough pieces to improve greatly from finishing 22nd in the NHL in offense last season. The defense should be solid, as it usually is, under the watchful eye of Julien and his coaching staff, but the puck-moving/transition aspect will be a source of concern with Hamilton gone.

One thing above all else is certainly true: the Bruins will be a more entertaining team this season. They will more consistently exert maximum effort through their 82 regular-season game schedule. Last season, it appeared as if the Bruins coasted through portions of the season and there was a softness and fragility to the hockey club that hadn’t been there in previous years.

New Bruins GM Don Sweeney made changes in the summer to address those negative team characteristics by shipping out Reilly Smith, Dougie Hamilton and Carl Soderberg, along with the inconsistent Milan Lucic, and bringing in tough, intense competitors in Beleskey, Jimmy Hayes and Zac Rinaldo.

The Bruins players, old and new, understand to a man that getting back into the playoffs is the big goal for this season under any circumstances.

“It’s nice to have everybody back. We’re all going to start, and before you know it we’ll play our first exhibition game on Sunday,” said Chara. “It’s definitely a little different…the changes we made. New faces and new voices bring a new energy, and we’re really looking forward to that.

“We’re going to focus on our training camp, have a good, solid training camp and focus on getting ready for the regular season. I’m sure that if we continue to make steps forward then we are going to be in the playoffs for sure.”

That’s not exactly a Joe Namath guarantee of the playoffs from the Bruins captain, but it’s certainly the kind of thing people around the B’s want to hear after a long, unsatisfying summer that followed a season of discontent.

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