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Kalman: Spooner, Pastrnak, Ferlin Making Bruins Feel Young Again

BOSTON (CBS) - Bruins forward Brad Marchand knows a thing or two about what it's like for a bunch of veterans to get a boost from a young hot shot that joins the lineup.

Not too long ago he was one. Now he's a 26-year-old veteran with a Stanley Cup championship, a 28-goal season and 110 NHL goals on his resume, and the likes of David Pastrnak, Ryan Spooner and Brian Ferlin are providing much-needed enthusiasm for a struggling Bruins team.

The Bruins defeated the Arizona Coyotes 4-1 at TD Garden on Saturday to improve to 31-22-9. Although five veterans had two points each, Spooner and Pastrnak each had an assist and combined with Milan Lucic (one goal, one assist) to continue to give the Bruins a jolt of energy.

"That's huge for our team right now," Marchand said after he had a goal and an assist in the win against the Coyotes. "It's something we were missing all year. It just seemed like different guys came up and they didn't seem to have that. And these guys that are up right now, they're playing hard, they're playing for spots and they're looking really good. And we need that youthful energy.

"It gets the guys excited. It gets the older guys going. It gets them more into the game and we feed off that energy and we've needed it and it definitely helps us right now."

The 23-year-old Spooner had the game-winning overtime goal in New Jersey that started the Bruins' sweep of a back-to-back. The 18-year-old Pastrnak set up that goal and also had the primary assist on Lucic's goal that got the Bruins off and running against the Coyotes. The 22-year-old Ferlin continued to form a prototypical fourth line with veteran center Chris Kelly and left winger Jordan Caron – forechecking, hitting and protecting the puck while playing with it in the opponents' zone.

With the NHL trade deadline approaching on Monday, many are expecting the Bruins to swing a deal or two to improve the team's chances of qualifying for the Stanley Cup Playoffs. But maybe all this group of aging vets, most of which have been to the Stanley Cup finals twice in the past four years and have played a ton of hockey, needed was some players to act like red ants in their pants and get their skates moving at a rapid pace again.

There's no denying that since the youthful recruits have joined the lineup, urgency has returned to the Bruins' play. They've won three of their past four games and they outshot the Vancouver Canucks 41-28 in the one defeat in that span.

Watching these kids plays makes you wonder what took general manager Peter Chiarelli so long to get them into the lineup. Pastrnak not only was working on his game with Providence of the American Hockey League; his season also included a stint with the Czech team at the World Junior Championship.

It took injuries to David Krejci and Gregory Campbell to finally force a lineup shakeup. The changes came late, but hopefully for the Bruins, not too late.

"When young guys come into the lineup, you hope that they bring some sort of excitement and obviously young legs, skating legs and stuff like that," Lucic said. "I think all three of them [Pastrnak, Spooner, Ferlin] have been good for us, like I said, the last couple games and with the Chicago game. Like I said, the main thing with a young guy coming in, you want to feed off their excitement of being up here and the NHL and it's good to see them playing with that and gaining more confidence as they're playing more games."

The next couple of days will tell us how much Chiarelli and coach Claude Julien trust these younger players to play more games down the stretch and in the playoffs. In addition to the possibility of trades, Campbell and Krejci will be healthy enough to play again down the road. Lineup decisions will get difficult if the younger players continue to perform at this level.

Maybe at least a couple of these guys can blossom the way Marchand did a few years ago. And down the road they can be the ones that need a spark after several years and a few lengthy playoff runs.

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