The 26-year-old Bourque, who played for Boston University and is also the son of Bruins legend Raymond Bourque, has played for the Pittsburgh Penguins and Washington Capitals organizations.

The Left Winger has one goal and three assists in 33 NHL games.

He registered 93 points (27 goals, 66 assists) in 73 games with the Hershey Bears in 2011-12. He is set to become an unrestricted free agent on July 1.

Hamill, 23, has played in a total of 20 NHL games and has no goals and four assists.

He recorded 21 points (eight goals, 13 assists) in 41 games last season with the Providence Bruins.

Rumor has it the Bruins are prepared to make a major offer for Columbus’ Rick Nash, who wants out of Ohio. However, the price tag is going to be pretty high.

CSNNE’s Bruins insider Joe Haggerty joined 98.5 The Sports Hub’s Toucher & Rich Friday morning to talk a potential Nash trade to Boston, but Columbus may be asking too much at the moment.

The current rate for Nash to come to Boston would be Milan Lucic and Dougie Hamilton or Tyler Seguin and Hamilton; two deals Haggs doesn’t see the Bruins offering up.

“That’s a gigantic price I don’t think the Bruins are willing to pay, and rightfully so,” said Haggerty.

“It’s not very real right now; I think they’re asking for way too much,” said Haggerty. “They want a ton, and rightfully so; he’s a franchise player. They also feel like at the draft next month in Pittsburgh there will be a  lot of interest in him, and they’ll probably be able to get a couple of teams into a bidding war.”

Kalman: Chiarelli Facing Difficult Decisions With Crop Of Forwards

While there is no way the Bruins deal away both Segiun and Hamilton, two of their young cornerstones of the future, would they be willing to part with Lucic’ physicality to Nash’s scoring?

“I think he is such an important part of the fabric of that team and the personality in the way they play, it would be extremely difficult for me to see them do that,” Haggerty said of Lucic. “It would depend on what they were getting back, but it would have to be an incredible deal; when they were talking to the Kings about Dustin Brown — who is tearing it up in the playoffs right now — Lucic’s name was brought up.

Kalman: Bruins Hit Offseason With Deep, Solid Defensive Corps

How much of a difference is there in Nash’s game compared to Lucic’?

“He doesn’t play as physical as Lucic does. He had half as many hits as Lucic did (last season), he’s not the fore-checker Lucic is, he’s not the fighter that Lucic is, he’s not the fearsome intimidator on the ice that Lucic is,” said Haggery. “You also have to wonder about a guy that has played in Columbus for nine years on a crappy team, and never complained to leave before now… As far as the NHL playoffs go, he hasn’t had much experience at all and you wonder what he’d be able to bring at that time of the year.”

How much emphasis are the Bruins going to place on offense this summer? And If they don’t land Nash, who are other potential options to boost their goal-scoring? Find out this and more with Joe Haggery on Toucher & Rich! 

However, we all know about the best laid plans. Once again this season, the Stanley Cup playoffs have proven how vital it is to have depth on defense in order to guard against injury and suspension. It’s better to be prepared than it is to wish upon a star your team will be as lucky as this season’s Los Angeles Kings, who have used just the same six defensemen for all 14 of their playoff games.

With all of Boston’s key defensemen one year older, and with the hard-nosed approach they all bring on the ice night in and night out, lineup shuffles at crucial times of the season are inevitable. So the Bruins will again have to supplement their back-end with players who embody that tough-as-nails attitude and can provide competition to those who would regularly be in the lineup.

Here’s a quick breakdown of the Bruins’ defense with the offseason ready to heat up in a just a couple of weeks after someone finally hoists the Stanley Cup:

Under contract
Johnny Boychuk
Zdeno Chara
Andrew Ference
Adam McQuaid
Dennis Seidenberg

Unrestricted free agent
Joe Corvo
Mike Mottau
Greg Zanon

Restricted free agent
No veterans

Prospects
Matt Bartkowski (RFA)
Andrew Bodnarchuk (RFA)
Doug Hamilton
Torey Krug
David Warsofsky

Ideally, I’ve always felt that if the Bruins could get to the point where Ference could remain as a third-pair defenseman for the duration of a season, regular season and playoffs, that would be proof they’re deep on the back-end. With Ference entering the last year of his contract, that should be the Bruins’ goal this season.

Without putting too high expectations on Hamilton and/or Krug, one of Boston’s prospects could be the one to challenge for a top-four spot. Or it could be as simple as a healthy McQuaid continuing to develop as an all-around factor. Remember, when he was playing his best in the middle of last season he was often getting difficult defensive assignments alongside Chara and getting some shots through from the point.

READ: A Look At Bruins’ Forward Situation

It’s almost automatic that Boston’s five signed veterans will be back, although a healthy McQuaid could be trade bait depending on how things play in terms of ice time and the lineup. Ference’s leadership is too valuable to the club, even if he winds up playing less, and it’s doubtful Boston just re-signed Boychuk just to turn around and trade him.

Corvo had all season to give the Bruins a reason to retain him and he failed. He’s a goner.

Zanon, although a solid fit for the stretch run, probably doesn’t factor enough into the Bruins’ plans for the long-term to come back. Another team with more to offer will be interested in his services.

Mottau, while a hometown guy, might find the money and the opportunity greater in other locales. He’s been a popular guy everywhere he’s played. If Mottau’s willing to risk being a long-time healthy scratch, it might be worth the Bruins anteing up the cash to bring him back just based on knowing what he can do as opposed to a player from that outside who might not fit as well.

A lot of what happens with the Bruins’ blue line won’t be decided until the team has a few exhibition games under its belt. Once the Bruins can determine where Hamilton and Krug fit, they can make difficult decisions, if necessary. That’s why general manager Peter Chiarelli was wise to make sure he’d have five top-four caliber defenseman signed heading into the offseason. Now all he has to do is add the depth to fill that sixth spot and have backups in case of emergency. And if one of the prospects leapfrogs a veteran or two, well that’s the type of problem every GM yearns for.

Matt Kalman covers the Bruins for CBSBoston.com. He operatesTheBruinsBlog.net and also contributes coverage to NHL.com and several other media outlets. Follow him on twitter @TheBruinsBlog.

Developments tied to the situations of both those players will greatly determine what the Bruins’ forward group looks like going forward. With the Stanley Cup Final less than a week away, we’re getting close to the time of year when the non-title-contending teams begin to position themselves for moves prior to the draft and the start of free agency.

So with that in mind, here’s a quick look at the Bruins’ forward situation this offseason:

Under contract
Patrice Bergeron
Jordan Caron
Nathan Horton
David Krejci
Milan Lucic
Brad Marchand
Rich Peverley
Tyler Seguin
Shawn Thornton

Unrestricted free agent
Gregory Campbell
Chris Kelly
Daniel Paille
Brian Rolston

Restricted free agent
Benoit Pouliot

Prospects
Lane MacDermid (RFA)
Carter Camper
Max Sauve
Jared Knight
Ryan Spooner
Alexander Khokhlachev

Before digging into how the current Bruins’ offseason plays out, you have to remember that Lucic, Marchand, Seguin and Caron are entering the final year of their current deals and will all be restricted free agents in 2013 — barring any extensions. So to an extent, general manager Peter Chiarelli has to concern himself not only with this year’s free agents but also project both what next year’s free agents will be worth and whether he wants to keep or lose some of them.

I would expect both Pouliot and MacDermind to return to the mix after accepting qualifying offers or signing low-risk contracts to return for at least one year apiece. They’ll both be given an opportunity to compete for a bottom-six spot. Rolston served his purpose, but there’s no reason to bring him back at this time.

Among the big-name signed forwards, obviously Bergeron, Seguin and Horton (if healthy) are guys the Bruins are going to count on next season. Chiarelli has already stated his desire to only tweak his team, but he’ll have to consider the long-term implications of keeping the young forwards who are going into the last year of their deals, especially Lucic. Both of Boston’s first-line players have provided a long enough sample size at the NHL level for the team’s brass to have a definitive opinion one way or the other.

And then there are the unrestricted free agents. With the likes of Pouliot and MacDermid probably back, plus the arrival of Knight, Spooner and a couple of guys who played at Providence last season, Paille might’ve skated his final game for the Bruins. His skill set is just duplicated too many times on the Bruins’ depth chart. It’s not even a case of money with Paille, but opportunity.

Then there are the two UFA centers – Kelly and Campbell. One would think that if the Bruins get a deal done with Kelly, it will have a ripple effect. Campbell would probably be gone. And the notion of shifting Seguin to center could be postponed, while the idea of trading Krejci would gain more steam. There’s building depth down the middle – which the Bruins have successfully done – and then there’s overkill.

While he was a great addition and key component of the Cup-winning team, and he’s emerged as one of the mouthpieces for the team on the ice and in the dressing room, Kelly might be best-suited to another team. He could certainly get more money and commitment elsewhere, maybe even back with Ottawa, and there’s certainly uncertainty about playing time if he sticks with the Bruins. Boston could let him walk, shift Seguin to center (a move the Bruins have to do soon to see what they have) and then bring Campbell back.

A Horton setback would obviously set off a whole other batch of maneuvers, but the power forward’s absence could just open up more of a chance for a young player. So truly, all the dominoes the Bruins have lined up won’t start to fall until the club and Chris Kelly make a decision. Then we’ll have a better idea of the direction the organization is going to travel.

Matt Kalman covers the Bruins for CBSBoston.com. He operatesTheBruinsBlog.net and also contributes coverage to NHL.com and several other media outlets. Follow him on twitter @TheBruinsBlog.

The award is presented each year to one sports franchise based on “excellence, growth, creativity, innovation, sound planning, implementation and outcomes.” It is voted on by a panel of editors, writers and researchers from the SportsBuniness Journal and SportsBusiness Daily.

Special: NHL Playoffs Section

The Bruins won thanks to their  2011 Stanley Cup Championship title (the award was for the period between March 1, 2011 through February 29, 2012) as well as their involvement in many charitable contributions throughout the Boston area. The Boston Bruins Foundation donated $1.6 million to various charities through grants and in-game fundraising in 2012.

Thanks to their cup run, the B’s saw record growth in revenue of ticket sales, retail sales, and corporate sponsorship. The Bruins were also recognized for increasing their online presence with the launch of the Bruins’ “Digital Enterainment Network,” responsible for those great “Bear and the Bear” webisodes.

The Bruins were nominated with the Dayton Dragons, Sporting Kansas City, Stewart-Haas Racing, and the Texas Rangers for the award.

In what may very well be the franchise’s final moment in Arizona, the Coyotes lost in overtime of Game 5 of the Western Conference finals to the Los Angeles Kings. There is no shame in that, as nobody’s been able to beat the Kings all postseason.

Yet, no other team chose to go out the way the Coyotes did, and for that, the Coyotes should feel shame.

The beginning of the end took place with 2:30 left in overtime. Michal Rozsival carried the puck across the blue line just after teammate Antoine Vermette crossed the line himself. The linesman blew his whistle for offsides, but he did not blow his whistle until after Brown had already begun making contact with Rozsival. Watch the replay and hit pause when you hear the whistle. You’ll notice that the two bodies have already collided by the time the whistle is blown:

So the hit was not late. But was it dirty? Well, no, not even a little bit. Brown certainly leaned into Rozsival (a necessary step if you’re trying to hit somebody, you know), but the fact that their legs collided was without question just incidental. Brown only leaned with his shoulder, and he never extended his left leg in order to hit Rozsival. After the collision, you could see Brown, an honest player by all accounts, immediately turn toward Rozsival after the collision, as if he wanted to apologize. In overtime. Of a playoff game. With a Stanley Cup Finals berth on the line.

If you think Brown intentionally made a knee-to-knee hit on Rozsival, you’re more than a little bit insane.

Cue the Coyotes postgame comments!

“If Raffi Torres gets 25 games for his hit during the play, then this guy [Brown] ought to be done forever,” Coyotes goalie Mike Smith said afterward, according to the Tucson Citizen.

(If you’re keeping track at home, he’s comparing a leaping head shot by a guy with a long rap sheet of dirty play to a shoulder-to-shoulder check that had some incidental leg contact. Solid.)

Captain Shane Doan, who stopped Brown in the postgame handshake line to offer his thoughts on the play, also drove the whambulance in the dressing room.

“How do you miss that?” Doan cried. “I mean Rozy’s knee’s blown out. How do you miss that? How do you miss that when it’s after the whistle and it’s a knee? How can you possibly miss that?”

Here’s one answer: It was not after the whistle.

Here’s another answer: Not every hit that includes two knees colliding is dirty and intentional. Sometimes, it happens.

Smith had more to cry about as well, in between his bites on his whamburger and french cries.

“It’s disappointing we not only got beat by them but got beat by the officials, too,” Smith said, according to Yahoo!, before bragging about his amazing 20-20 vision. “It’s not just that [Brown] play — it’s all game long. They called us for three offsides in the first period and none of them were offside.”

(A brief timeout: Smith stands in his net, which is positioned more than 100 feet away from the offensive blue line. Yet, he knows his team wasn’t offside. That’s incredible.)

“[A Kings player] flipped it over the glass — how do all four refs not see that?” he continued.

(Side note: There are only two referees and two linesmen on the ice for NHL games. There are never four referees. Apparently, in exchange for being gifted with phenomenal vision, Smith sacrificed his ability to count.)

“It’s not just this game, it’s all season long,” Smith said. “They did everything they could not to let us get to this position.”

Poor guy. If only the whole world hadn’t conspired against the Coyotes, maybe they would’ve won more than one game in this series. Maybe.

As bad as Smith’s and Doan’s postgame comments were, they weren’t the worst transgressions of the evening. Those came during the handshake line.

Now, there’s little argument in the sports world that the handshake line is the greatest tradition there is. In a sport as intense as playoff hockey, it’s incredible to see one team graciously accept victory and the other team respectfully resigned to defeat. Players show their true respect for each other, with some of the losing players offering words of encouragement to the winning players, while others are too overcome with emotion to even speak.

But the Coyotes took that tradition and disgraced it.

Before the handshake line even took place, Smith skated toward the referees (where alternate captain Keith Yandle and Derek Morris were already screaming in the refs’ faces), slammed his stick on the ice and shouted at them, as if they had just allowed the season-ending goal.

Once in the line, the other alternate captain, Martin Hanzal, stopped Brown in the line to share his thoughts on the hit. Seconds later, Doan took some time to shout his thoughts at Brown, too.

The Coyotes certainly have the right to be upset about anything they want, but to use the handshake line as a platform to whine and complain is just unacceptable.

Though it’s not surprising. The final goal came when Yandle tried to step up at the blue line and clear the puck but whiffed. He then was out of position and got beat to the net by Jeff Carter. Yandle then stood to the side as Dustin Penner’s game-winner flew past Smith and into the net.

Yandle’s immediate reaction? Turn to the ref and complain about a hand pass that never happened.

It was a good indication of what was to come from these Coyotes, and it perfectly displayed the difference between a team capable of winning a championship and one that’s only looking for excuses.

If the Coyotes do indeed leave Phoenix (which is anyone’s guess right now), would this not be the perfect ending to a chapter in franchise history that really never needed to happen?

Read more from Michael by clicking here, or find him on Twitter @michaelFhurley.

Then Tim Thomas won the Cup – defeating Roberto Luongo – and Philadelphia threw the state GDP of Pennsylvania at Ilya Bryzgalov. It took just one year for the pendulum to shift many teams’ thinking and leave those two separate camps – teams that wanted only the best in their crease and those hoping for “Antti Niemi Part II.”

Well if last year’s netminder battle didn’t convince the teams hedging their goaltending bets, this season’s Cup semifinals is definitely the final verdict – you need all-world goaltending to win.

As if we needed to be reminded, the performances of Jonathan Quick, Mike Smith, Henrik Lundqvist and Martin Brodeur have reinforced the notion that the Bruins are in a magnificent position in terms of goaltending and can take a couple different paths in the near future to aid their return to elite status in the league.

In capturing the Cup and the Conn Smythe Trophy last season, Thomas posted a .940 save percentage – actually bettering his then-single-season record (since broken by St. Louis’ Brian Elliott this season) of .938 from the regular season. Now, through two games of the Eastern Conference final and three games of the Western series, check out these postseason save percentage numbers:

Quick (Los Angeles) – .951

Smith (Phoenix) – .942

Lundqvist (New York) – .937

Brodeur (New Jersey) – .921

Those left shaking their head over Thomas’ remarkable Cup run must be ready to put their head through a wall (or the end glass) trying to fathom how – and the numbers plus the contortionist-like saves being made back this up – there are actually four guys playing like 2011 Tim Thomas in these playoffs. Headfirst dives, skate saves, back-of-the-leg blocks – if you blink you’re going to miss a great save and you’ll only get to see another failed shooter shaking his head.

As I watch these four teams, I wonder a couple of things with regard to the Bruins. First, I wonder what Thomas can get the Bruins on the trade market. I’m not going to devote a lot of energy repeating my arguments for general manager Peter Chiarelli at least entertaining offers. After I wrote that, I had some readers ready to pack Thomas’ bags and maybe a few more wanting me traded.

But look at what Brodeur is doing at 40 and think to yourself, “What can Tim Thomas do at 38, 39, 40 … or beyond?” I’m sure several goaltending-hungry GMs around the league are thinking that right now. Thomas carries a $5 million cap hit into the final year of his contract. Maybe he’d be willing to sacrifice some cash for even longer-term security from the Bruins or another club. That’s why it might be wise for the Bruins to ink Thomas to an extension even before they decide whether they want to keep him around beyond this season. He could stay at a cap-friendly salary or help someone else at the same rate. A lot of Boston’s flexibility in that situation will depend on what goes down with Tuukka Rask’s new contract.

Of course, there’s another school of thought when it comes to Thomas. Everyone knows how motivated he has been by failure and criticism. It might be amazing to watch how he comes back after the Bruins’ disastrous first-round defeat. I think he might be sitting home watching Brodeur and be thinking, “I want to be even better than that as I close in on Brodeur’s age.” He has to marvel at Quick’s play and think, “Well, everyone think he’s the best U.S.-born goaltender on Earth, but I’m going to take that moniker back in 2012-13.” Not to mention, Thomas will have the usual motivating factor of playing for a new contract with summer free agency just months away.

Thomas has never lacked for outside inspiration. Now, his cup might be overflowing, and an extra-inspired Thomas might be just what the Bruins need to get closer to the Cup by this time next season.

Matt Kalman covers the Bruins for CBSBoston.com. He operatesTheBruinsBlog.net and also contributes coverage to NHL.com and several other media outlets. Follow him on twitter @TheBruinsBlog.

Seguin talked with John Bishop of BostonBruins.com and a tendon came out of its socket in a game in March, and he just got his cast removed this week.

“They said about 10 weeks is the full recovery process,” Seguin said. “Right now, I’m not doing any working out. I just got the stitches removed yesterday, that’s why I’m back in town. Hopefully within the next couple weeks I can start moving it a bit more and then hopefully after that be able to lift weights.”

There’s something else Seguin’s been unable to do since his season ended abruptly in overtime of Game 7 a few weeks ago, and that’s watch the rest of the NHL playoffs.

“Not too much. Not too much at all,” Seguin said. “There’s been a few times where I’ve been out at dinner and it’s on and you watch a little bit, but it still stings so much.”

When it comes to training to get back on the ice, the still-developing forward said his focus right now is developing some “man strength.”

“My number one thing is my core strength, which just basically comes with battling in corners and just having that man strength,” Seguin said. “I think if I can continue to work on that, I’m only going to get stronger.”

After a 29-goal campaign in his second season, a stronger Seguin for Year 3 certainly sounds promising.

Tom Cuddy acquired it for me as I had just began to work for him, and told me when I get into the Garden to go upstairs and ask for the Bruins PR man, the Great Nate Greenberg. As a rookie, he would tell me what I needed to know and what to do.

But he also told me to ask for Carl Beane, who also did work for Tom. Carl would help me down in the locker room after the game, because it can be intimidating the first time.

Carl took me up to the ridiculously small press box and we watched the game together. Not only was I happy about being in press row watching the team that I had worshiped since 1970, but I got to laugh. If you knew anything about “Beanie”, which is what I called him, he could make anyone laugh. He loved to make me laugh because I was an easy target for him. Whenever I saw Carl, he would always greet me with that loud booming voice with “REE-CARDO” (my name is Ricardo) and I would light up.

Read: Fenway Park PA Announcer Carl Beane Killed In Car Crash

Back in the late 80′s, when the Red Sox were sorta good and the Toronto Blue Jays were also pretty good, I had the pleasure/chore of covering those games for CBC Radio. But sitting next to me up in the third row of the press box would be Beanie, and of course he would do things to make me laugh (and if you know me, I laughed out loud… long  before the acronym LOL was even thought of). The “unmade beds”  – as he called the knights of the keyboards down front — would turn around and look at us as if we were crazy. We were, but we didn’t care. It was a baseball game not a church service. “Have a little fun,” Beanie would always say.

When Carl won the job as the “Voice of Fenway Park,” he and everyone that knew him knew he would be perfect. He was at the ballpark every day covering the team, now he would be a part of the Red Sox.

And he loved it. It would never pay the bills but he loved it. After the World Series victory in 2004, it not only paid off for the team, but it paid off for Carl. He got to do all the speaking engagements with the World Series Trophy where he shared stories of the team and, of course, from the booth. He was more than happy to talk about the team — and job — he was proud to represent.

Read: More From Bruins DieHard

One thing that Carl and I always had a rift about was he was a tried and true Montreal Canadiens fan. He knew how much I hated them and we always had fun with each other when the two teams played.

I last saw Beanie on March 10, up on the ninth floor of the Garden. He was the same jovial, dirty old man he always was, and I loved it.

Beanie was an unforgettable character who I will miss.

Goodbye my friend. Sleep well!

~REE-CARDO

Ric Duarte has covered hockey and the Bruins for various media outlets since 1986. You can follow Ric at BruinsDieHard.com and on Twitter @bruins_diehard.

He has to look at the history of players with concussions and, regardless of what his own eyes and his medical staff tells him, he must approach the summer as though Nathan Horton isn’t part of his team.

It seems like Chiarelli’s thinking on this matter has changed once already in the last several months. When Chiarelli made his announcement April 11 that the Bruins were shutting down Horton for the rest of the season, here’s what the general manager said with regard to the trade deadline:

“Yeah, I mean I think ultimately you want a goal scorer like Nathan, a guy with size that can score and shoot, you want him in the lineup. But our guys have adapted to change and I went into the [trade] deadline, thinking in the back of my head, ‘Boy, I better try and get somebody if Nathan doesn’t come back,’ hoping and thinking he would be back, and [we could] deal with an oversupply of players if we had to. The team has responded well, and the additions have been good so that’s all we can hope for right now.”

Well, Chiarelli failed to pick up more than just spare parts, rather than a player on par with Horton, prior to the deadline. And we all know that Horton’s absence was one of the factors most cited by the team for its early demise at the hands of the Washington Capitals.

Just a couple of weeks ago on breakup day, a couple of days after his team’s Game 7 loss, Chiarelli’s tune had changed in reference to Horton.

“Well, I approach it [the offseason] as he’s going to be back and healthy and in a month that may change, but based on the information given now, that’s my approach,” the GM said. “Based on my observation, I’m making that my approach. Based on what [Horton] has told me, that’s my approach. So, I mean he’s, and I consider him an active player for us and when we make our assessments, when we make our decisions, that’s how we approach it.”

After rushing back to play in the 2010 Stanley Cup playoffs, Marc Savard wasn’t ready to play again until December. It then took just two hits to knock him out for good in January. Sidney Crosby didn’t return until last November (an absence of 10 months) and then had to sit another three months after playing just eight games.

I don’t think we have to rehash all the setbacks players returning from concussions have had to overcome or failed to conquer. These are just two of the higher-profile examples.

Maybe Chiarelli’s thought is that with the continued improvement of Tyler Seguin plus an influx of prospects likes Jared Knight, Ryan Spooner and even offensive-minded defenseman Dougie Hamilton (who some don’t project as an NHL point-producer), the Bruins are covered should Horton fail to make a return.

But why risk it? After all, Horton was concussed for the first time with the Bruins in the Stanley Cup Final. When the 2011-12 season started, it took him nearly two months to “feel himself” as he put it. If it took him that long after the first injury, there’s no telling how long it will take him to find his form after missing what will be eight months come training camp in September.

The uncertainty over the collective bargaining agreement might cloud the Bruins’ salary-cap situation. However, they have space to use and assets that can be moved to make space. Should prices remain too high for the Bruins, as they were at the trade deadline, to find a Horton replacement, fine. Expecting that when the 2012-13 season opens Horton will be back in 30-goal, fearsome-forechecker mode, never mind fully healthy, though, is a plan that could leave the Bruins with a glaring hole that could’ve been avoided.

Matt Kalman covers the Bruins for CBSBoston.com. He operatesTheBruinsBlog.net and also contributes coverage to NHL.com and several other media outlets. Follow him on twitter @TheBruinsBlog.

Los Angeles struggled just to make the playoff because just about no one could put the puck in the net during the last month of the season. But Quick literally put them on his back, and since the playoffs began, the Kings have scored with proficiency while still getting the goaltending that most Conn Smythe Trophy winners provide. (See: Tim Thomas, 2012.)

In the meantime, what happened to the Blues? They’ve had major defensive lapses, they are now the ones that can’t ruffle the twine and with Jaroslav Halak hurt and out for the series, Brian Elliott has not provided the quality goaltending that both gave the Blues during the regular season.

There’s no surprise that the Kings finished off the Blues on Sunday afternoon. For L.A., the key is to change nothing,  and with the leaders being leaders, i.e. Mike Richards and Dustin Penner, Darryl Sutter’s group should have some time off after earning a bid in the Western Conference finals.

There is a somewhat stunning development in the other series out West. After winning the first two games in Phoenix, the Coyotes went to Nashville and snagged one from the Predators, sending them reeling back to the desert in what could be their swan song. Timing and goaltending have been the keys to this series. Mike Smith has been sensational when he stays in his net and doesn’t go for afternoon stroll. Pekka Rinne also has been good, but not good enough. A little shaky in the first two games, Rinne has been outstanding but still suffered a 1-0 loss in Game 4on a goal deflected in by his own player.

After dismissing Detroit in pretty convincing fashion, this is not what the Predators or their fans expected. Look for Barry Trotz to re-insert his malcontents, Alex Radulov and Andrei Kostitsyn, for Game 5 and hope for the best, which may not be enough as Phoenix looks to advance to the third round for the first time in franchise history.

In New Jersey, happy birthday, Martin Brodeur. Forty trips around the sun and you still know how stop the puck in the biggest games of the year on the biggest stage. You just may take your team past that space-shot who plays the same position 200 feet away. The Devils took a stranglehold on the series with the Philadelphia Flyers with a win Sunday night in New Jersey. The enigma/space-shot Ilya Bryzgalov has been inconsistent  in the Flyers’ net, making a great save, then giving up an easy goal. That won’t win you a playoff series, let alone a championship. That’s especially true when Brodeur turns back the clock and thinks he is playing in 1995, 2000 or 2003. Philly needs the good Bryzgalov and not the bad Bryz-GOAL-ov to get back into this series as it heads back to the City of Brotherly Love. They may not be so loving with the Flyers down 3-1.

Wrapping this up and continuing on with the netminding theme, we come to the New York Ranger and the Washington Capitals. We know about the King, Vezina nominee Henrik Lundqvist, and how solid he has been throughout the season and now in the playoffs, but who knew 22-year-old Braden Holtby would continue the sensational play in the second round that he exhibited in dispatching the Boston Bruins in a tightly fought seven-game series in the first round?

Holtby has matched Lundqvist in goal in what has become a fascinating series with each team blocking shots and both teams’ top players coming up with big goals when needed. When the Bruins were eliminated, I wanted to root for the Rangers. I like their work ethic. Being a goalie, I love Lundqvist, and what could be better than Boston College alumni Brian Boyle and recent BC national champion Chris Kreider winning the Stanley Cup after witnessing what we all witnessed June 15, 2011?.

What I really don’t like about the Rangers is the pompous ass of a coach, also from Boston, John Tortorella. Confrontation is his No. 1 agenda. I’m not sure the National Hockey League always wants to see one of their coaches of a high profile team constantly acting like a detestable child at virtually every press conference after each game. Tortorella needs to grow up and suck it up and quit acting like he is hiding state secrets if the media asks something he doesn’t like.

I believe this Rangers-Capitals series will go the distance, and right now I have no clue which team will blink. But because there is nothing like playoff hockey, it’ll be so much fun to watch!

Ric Duarte has covered hockey and the Bruins for various media outlets since 1986. You can follow Ric at BruinsDieHard.com and at twitter @bruins_diehard.

Neely reflected on the Bruins’ season and his feelings after their stunning, year-ending loss to the Capitals in Game 7 of the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

“We didn’t play the way we were capable of playing,” Neely said. “You have to give Washington some credit, but I think if we really look at it, we can say that we could have played better in some of those games.”

Among the biggest areas for improvement for the Bruins was their power play, which went just 2-for-23 in the seriers. Neely conceded that the Bruins’ power play needs improvement.

“I just think it was too static,” Neely said. “We have to look at like it’s an important part of the game and of our game. … If our power play is better, there’s a better chance that we’re going to win more games because of it. … It’s certainly an area of our game that we can improve on.

“There’s not many areas where we look at and say, ‘Jeez, we need a huge improvement here,’ and the power play is one area where I believe we can improve.”

Neely expressed confidence that the B’s have the personnel to have an effective power play.

“I think we have some guys that are creative, some guys that can shoot the puck,” he said.

Felger and Mazz also asked Neely some questions about the offseason and next year’s version of the Bruins. Does Neely anticipate having both Tuukka Rask and Tim Thomas back? Where does Tyler Seguin fit into the Bruins’ future? Might he be moved to center? And will the Bruins acquire a forward in the offseason?

Neely concluded the interview by talking about his feelings on the ownership.

“There is a strong commitment from ownership to do what we have to do put a winning team on the ice,” Neely said.

98.5 The Sports Hub is the only place to hear every game of the Boston Bruins season with Dave Goucher and Bob Beers. Pregame coverage begins 30 minutes before the puck drops, with Postgame coverage following each game.

“Just because of the character of our players, I’m confident,” Neely said Thursday during a year-end press conference. “When you’re a professional athlete, you’re in the sport to win. At least you should be in the sport to win. And I think we’ve done a really good job of bringing in players who want to win and have the right character to win us championships. So I think as the offseason progresses, and it’s longer and longer than maybe they realized that they would like, I feel pretty confident that they’ll come back with the right attitude next September.”

Players pointed to the short 2011 offseason, the Washington game plan and the absences of Nathan Horton and Adam McQuaid more often than their own failures a little more than I’d like. But if Neely believes in this group, you can give them the benefit of the doubt. Of course, that benefit of the doubt will only last so long.

And now that Neely has come out in favor of his team’s core of players, and in support of his general manager and head coach, he has cast his lot with the current crew and the approach the likes of Peter Chiarelli, Claude Julien and other members of the front office and coaching staff plan to take to prevent another first-round ouster.

Neely on Friday echoed Chiarelli’s comments from a week ago about not remaking the roster, but instead altering it and supplementing it without changing the face.

“I think just some tweaking. Peter and I spoke a few days after the season ended. We’re going to have more discussions as the summer progresses here. But I like the makeup of our team,” Neely said. “I like the character of our team. I think Pete’s done a really good job signing the players before they become free agents as best he can. I think we have guys that are still going to improve. We have a young team in that regard, as far as core goes, [and] that will improve. But we know we have some areas that we can certainly look at to improve. And we’ll have more discussions in the offseason about how we can go about doing that.”

Standing pat isn’t as bold a move as, say, trading a couple of top-line players for a similar return. But it’s a risk as great. Should the Bruins find themselves in the same position one year from now, there will be regrets and blame to throw around. Another disappointing end could cost someone a job.

While much of the focus of how the Bruins bounce back will be concentrated on Chiarelli and Julien, how the Bruins respond will be a referendum on Neely’s leadership as well. By all accounts, Neely has done a great job, not just by improving the on-ice product but working to make the Bruins matter again. The only way the Bruins stay prominent is by winning, and making sure 2011 isn’t an anomaly people have to wait 39 years to see repeated is Neely’s Job One. Neely needs his people, namely Chiarelli, Julien and the team’s elite talents, to reward his confidence in them. Or he might find himself on the hot seat right along them.

Matt Kalman covers the Bruins for CBSBoston.com. He operatesTheBruinsBlog.net and also contributes coverage to NHL.com and several other media outlets. Follow him on twitter @TheBruinsBlog.

WBZ NewsRadio 1030′s Mark Katic reports.

The Bruins want to enhance the game-day experience of their fans and Charlie Jacobs says they’ve made a big step in that direction, signing a 75-year lease of the MBTA garage underneath North Station.

They envision mall-style retail shops, better parking and a second entrance and exit onto Legends Way and Causeway Street.

“As anybody who has attended a game or any event at the Garden, it can be very difficult to get out, and I personally have experienced it. It’s a grind,” said Charlie Jacobs, of the Bruins.

The Bruins’ Charlie Jacobs says they would combine that with the open parking area in front:

“Have them both combined, maybe do some enhancements to both properties, and when I say enhancements, I mean as we build up the front lot, maybe we do some bump-outs to this building to improve both game experience and the player environment, locker rooms, weight rooms, etc.” said Jacobs.

Specifics are not in place and Jacobs says this wouldn’t be reality until 2014 or 2015.

Boston’s 2011 first round pick Dougie Hamilton has won the Ontario Hockey League’s Max Kaminsky Trophy for the most outstanding defenseman.

The 18-year-old Hamilton led all defensemen in scoring with 17 goals and 55 assists in 50 games for the OHL’s Niagra IceDogs.

“This year has been a ton of fun and it is a huge honor to win this award,” Hamilton said in a release. “I spent the last couple of years watching the best defencemen in the league and then trying to get myself to that point and it is exciting to be here now and receive this award. A lot of past winners have gone on to NHL careers and hopefully I can follow suit.”

Gresh & Zo: What Moves Can The B’s Make?

While the Bruins may be done playing hockey this season, Hamilton and the IceDogs are not. Niagra will take on the London Knights — who have another Bruins prospect in Jared Knight — in the 2012 Ontario Hockey League championship series, set to begin on Thursday.

The IceDogs are playing for a title for the first time in franchise history thanks to a strong postseason from Hamilton. The 2011 ninth-overall pick finished the semifinals against the Ottawa 67′s with two goals and six assists, including three assists in Niagara’s Game 4 victory and two assists in the team’s Game 5 victory.

In 15 playoff games this season, Hamilton has four goals and 15 assists. His 19-points ranks ninth among all playoff scorers and second amongst defensemen.

Read: Will Tim Thomas Be A Bruin Next Year?

The Bruins acquired the pick used to draft Hamilton in the Phil Kessel trade with Toronto, which also netted them the 2010 second-overall selection used to draft Tyler Seguin.

With the B’s unable to put the puck in the net with any consistency, will the team look to deal for a top-6 forward?

Also, are Milan Lucic and David Krejci on the trading block? And if you had to trade one, who would it be?

The guys debated which direction the Bruins should go to get ready for next season.

Realizing how fortunate they were to land the 2010 No. 2 overall pick while still being among the league’s elite – a fact proven by their triumphant run to the 2011 Stanley Cup championship – the Bruins determined that they would mold Seguin into an all-around player instead of just a sniper.

There was no pressure to grant Seguin a ton of ice time and let him run wild. While the likes of Taylor Hall, John Tavares and other prized high draft picks got to join floundering organizations and rack up numbers for losing outfits, there are questions about how much those players are difference-makers and whether they’ll ever turn around those organizations’ fortunes.

With Seguin, the Bruins saw a player they could be patient with and develop into the type of player they create in the image they have for an NHL star (a two-way standout) and build around years down the road.

From Seguin’s rookie year, when he was cast in a supporting role, to his sophomore season, the plan mostly stayed on the right track. It’ll now be up to Seguin to make sure Year 3, which will be the toughest one yet, advances his maturation even further.

“I thought I improved in a lot of areas this year,” Seguin said when asked to assess this second season. “Going into this year was really my D-zone and my compete and battle level [I wanted to improve], and I thought those got really improved this year. I still want to continue to improve. I think I got rewarded with some production this year a lot more than last year. So that’s definitely something I’ll keep working on and go from here.”

There’s no doubt Bruins general manager Peter Chiarelli believes all is right when it comes to Seguin. The GM said Seguin’s “on the path of becoming a star in this league” at the team’s breakup day, just days after Boston’s bitter seven-game loss to Washington in the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Head coach Claude Julien also acknowledged Seguin’s improvement, both with his words (pointing out how impressive it is for a 20-year-old to lead the team in scoring) and with his lineups that more often than not featured Seguin on Patrice Bergeron’s right wing on a line that often matched up against other teams’ top trios. There’s no bigger vote of confidence for Seguin’s improved defense than that decision by Julien.

Now that Seguin has the gist of defensive hockey in the NHL, it’ll be up to him to continue to improve in that area. But he’ll also have to avoid neglecting the offensive improvements he has to make, which were evident during some regular-season slumps and in the postseason. There’ll be no taking other teams by surprise anymore for Seguin. And although the Bruins are likely to surround him with plenty of support offensively – with the return of Nathan Horton to join Milan Lucic, David Krejci and Brad Marchand (not to mention a possible offseason addition and the arrival of a prospect or two) – as a player who was drafted so high, and has the type of talents scouts brag about, and wears No. 19 because he fashions himself a would-be Steve Yzerman, Seguin’s going to be the focal point.

While he’ll still be expected to take care of his own end, he’ll probably be cast in a much more offensive role, either as a top-line winger, or as the team’s top center depending on how personnel maneuvers pan out in the offseason.

“The one thing we don’t want to take away is his offensive talent and his skill and we’ll always push for that to be the first and foremost thing from his game,” Julien said.

Seguin said he’s going to strengthen his core some more this summer so he’ll be better able to battle along the boards. He’s taken the lesson about missing a team meeting in Winnipeg to heart, and there were no public discipline issues the rest of his sophomore season. In addition to 67 points, he put up a plus-34 rating. And his goals in Game 6 and 7 of the Capitals series showed how many of the lessons of his first two seasons he’s putting into use.

Although the learning process never ends, patience does. Seguin will have to further limit his on- and off-ice mistakes next season and make a similar leap from this year to next as he did his rookie to second season in order to validate the Bruins’ plan for him and, more importantly, make the Bruins a team that doesn’t fall on its face in the 2013 playoffs.

Matt Kalman covers the Bruins for CBSBoston.com. He operatesTheBruinsBlog.net and also contributes coverage to NHL.com and several other media outlets. Follow him on twitter @TheBruinsBlog.

Thomas was somewhat human during the regular season and playoffs after a historic performance in last year’s Stanley Cup run. It was an up and down year off the ice, with plenty of distractions stemming from skipping the B’s White House trip and other Facebook posts he made.

Kalman: Chiarelli Should Consider Trading Thomas

The Bruins have Tuukka Rask waiting in the wings, and were pleased with what Anton Khudobin had to offer in Providence and a brief NHL stint at the end of the season. So, will the two-time Vezina winner be back in Boston for the 2012-13 season?

“I’m not sure he wants to be here anymore,” CSNNE Bruins insider Joe Haggery told 98.5 The Sports Hub’s Toucher & Rich Tuesday morning. “He was very hesitant when asked if he wanted to retire a member of the Bruins. He had to think about it and he was giving very weird answers or answers that were very unclear. I don’t think he is back. I think they’ll look to move him. They’ll end up having Khudobin and Rask as their two young goalies going into next year.”

Haggs On Toucher & Rich: Injuries No Excuse For Most

“Maybe they can get value. Maybe they can go out and get somebody,” Haggerty said of a potential Thomas trade. “A team that really needs a goalie, maybe (the Bruins) can get another piece that can help them scoring-wise or somewhere else.”

The Bruins also have a few free agents of their own to worry about, namely forward Chris Kelly. The 31-year-old was Mr. Everything for Boston in 2012, playing on whichever line he was needed on while netting a career-best 20 goals. He finished his first full season in Boston with a career-high 39 points, but will now hit the open market for a big payday, which may be too rich for the Bruins.

“Kelly is a tough call because he is going to command money on the market after that 20-goal season. At 31, this is his best time to get a big contract from someone and do the best he can financially,” said Haggerty. “I know he wants to come back, I’m not sure if it’s going to be possible just given the team’s dynamic and the value a player like that has in the Bruins’ heads as opposed to what he can get out there.”

“It would be great to have him back. He’s a valuable contributor, but I don’t know if he will be,” he said.

The Bruins also have some questions on their fourth line, better known as “The Merlot Line.” While they locked up Shawn Thornton with a two-year extension during the season, his linemates Gregory Campbell and Daniel Paille are both free agents, and could find themselves elsewhere come next season.

Read: Banged Up, Tired Bruins Head Home Too Early

“I think the fourth line is somewhere you’ll see some change. They would like to have both of those players back — Paille and Campbell — but look at the playoffs. They got completely outplayed by the Washington fourth line,” said Haggerty. ”The fourth line is a place — aside from Shawn Thornton — that’s a haven for young, inexpensive players coming up. That’s what I think you’ll see the Bruins do with some of the roles on that fourth line.”

Should the Bruins trade Tim Thomas this off-season? And which free agents would you like to see back on the team? Let us know in the comments section…

Now with the team’s season over news started coming out about injuries guys were playing through in these tough games.

Comcast SportsNet’s Joe Haggerty joined Toucher & Rich to discuss what the Bruins are in the market for in the offseason and what players were battling through injuries.

Bruins GM Peter Chiarelli said that he’s in the market for a top nine forward in this offseason, but what kind of guy is he talking about. In Haggerty’s opinion is Chiarelli talking about a depth acquisition or a pure goal scorer?

“I think some people have taken it to mean that it’s merely a third line guy, especially where right after Chiarelli mentioned that he talked about Jordan Caron and Benoit Pouliot. He mentioned them by name, he didn’t want them to be worried about whatever and he wasn’t trying to find someone to replace their jobs. So that would make you think that it’s a third line guy, but I think you got to shoot for bigger fish here.”

Once a team’s season ends all the reports about injuries players were dealing with start to come out. It was clear that center Patrice Bergeron was dealing with some sort of injury in the Capitals series and after they were eliminated we learned he was dealing with a strained oblique muscle. What other guys were trying to play through an injury?

“Tyler Seguin needs surgery on a knuckle on his left hand that was like blown up and much bigger than the rest of the knuckles on his hand, there was a tendon that got displaced. That actually happened towards the end of the regular season against Florida in their final trip there in March and he played through the rest of the year with it.”

Were injuries the reason why the B’s didn’t make it out of the first round of the playoffs this year?

“I think for the most part there were a couple of guys who were banged up, obviously Bergeron and I think Seguin the fact that he needs surgery were the biggest ones, but there weren’t a ton of guys that can use injuries as and excuse. I think this was more under-performance, this was more fatigue from the year before which manifested in them not being able to get up emotionally for the playoffs like they should have.”

In those seven games, the Bruins scored just 15 goals in support of Thomas’ sterling effort. Boston’s offensive ineptitude was in part caused by the Capitals’ suddenly undying devotion to defense and shot blocking, the absence of Nathan Horton, and the inability of the Bruins’ top forwards to muster the desperation and dedication necessary to produce at regular-season levels in the postseason.

General Manager Peter Chiarelli has to make sure that next season his all-world goaltending doesn’t perform in vain during the regular season and playoffs. In order to do that, he might have to lower the level of talent in his crease for the greater good. That might require him to trade Thomas.

While the Bruins tied Philadelphia for the second-most goals in the NHL during the regular season, Chiarelli shouldn’t consider the playoff struggles as an aberration, especially as long as there’s more than a trickle of doubt about Horton’s ability to contribute in the near future. With injuries like Horton’s, there’s no guarantee of a full return until said comeback is completed and sustained for a period of time after which the player can be considered “out of the woods.”

Numbers can be manipulated several ways. But the Bruins averaged 3.17 goals per game in the regular season. If you take out their 14-0-1 stretch from November into December, when they were credited with 66 goals (4.40 goals per game counting the shootout-win “goal”), they averaged just 2.9 goals per game in the other 67 games of the season.

If you look at just Boston’s “mediocre period” of the regular season, the time from their home loss to Vancouver Jan. 7 through a March 15 loss at Florida, a period of 33 games, they averaged just 2.64 goals per game. These numbers don’t qualify the Bruins as a general offensive abomination, they just classify the Bruins as a streaky offensive team that scores a lot and blows teams out when playing its best.

Chiarelli said during his breakup day comments that he’ll be on the hunt for a “top-nine forward.” Even with the return of Horton, that might not be enough to prevent the Bruins’ offense from peaking and sinking so often across the course of a season. Relying on the likes of Jordan Caron, Jared Knight and Ryan Spooner – solid prospects all – to provide the answer is also not the approach a manager with his eyes on being a perennial Stanley Cup contender takes.

Chiarelli also said he’s not inclined to move a goaltender. But the Bruins’ best assets reside in their net. A trade of Tuukka Rask would be first-guessed enough that any success Rask enjoyed down the road could cost Chiarelli his job. Moving Thomas, however, is something he’d have to consider.

Of course, the Bruins couldn’t expect to get a king’s ransom for a guy who’s been their king for a several seasons. Thomas is 38 and has just one year remaining on his contract. An acquiring team would be taking some of a risk to pick him up. Now there would be several teams willing to take that risk – with Tampa Bay probably at the front of the line – but not at much of an expense to the rest of their NHL roster.

The Bruins might have to consider Thomas’ value more for his $5 million of cap space than as an All-Star goaltender. His $5 million could go a long way toward pursuing Zach Parise or trading for Rick Nash or Bobby Ryan, not to mention other star forwards that might become available once team’s reassess their situations this offseason.

In my mind, Rask is ready to inherit the No. 1 job. He’s been groomed long enough and it’s unfair to ask him to possibly be limited to just 30 games or so next season. With Anton Khudobin, or a veteran picked up via trade or free agency, Rask should be a 50-game goaltender without having to oust an incumbent multi-time Vezina winner.

There’s a school of thought that keeping things as is would benefit the Bruins because they’d have two all-world goaltenders competing, with Thomas playing his rear off for one more contract. Thomas’ performance would benefit the Bruins to the point at which they can score enough to make it worth his while. And if they’re not going to sign him beyond 2012-13, doesn’t it make sense to get something for him, and get a jump on using his cap space?

For several years Chiarelli has managed to rework his personnel in front of his goaltending without reducing the Thomas-Rask duo by one. He might be able to do that again. However, he could find himself shy several goals this time next year again if he doesn’t at least considering breaking up his goaltending tandem.

However, what he only alluded to but wouldn’t come out and say tells a tale of a player who’s a little frustrated with the way some things were done this season with the Bruins.

For the second straight postseason, Krejci was a non-factor in the first round. Although he exceeded the one point he posted against Montreal in 2011 by putting 1-2-3 totals on the score sheet against Washington, that’s hardly the production a first-line center should be proud of. If the Bruins are going to avoid another first-round exit at this time next season, they’re not going to be able to wait for Krejci to get his game going in the later rounds like he did when he emerged as the leading scorer in the all the playoffs during the ’11 Cup championship run.

Asked about a better start next season, Krejci alluded to some frustrations he had with things other than his ability to score.

“Obviously we wanted to start scoring right away,” he said about himself and left winger Milan Lucic. “Obviously it’s frustrating. But it’s really hard to say what went wrong, what I wanted to do differently and what I wanted my linemates, my coaches to do differently. I don’t want to say something I’d regret. We were pretty close to making it. Game 7, overtime, it could’ve gone either way. We just didn’t get those breaks this year.”

So apparently the 26-year-old center, even by saying he doesn’t want to comment on certain things, wasn’t pleased with certain coaching decisions that affected his line or his role. Well, considering the Bruins just signed him to a three-year deal worth $5.25 million per season, Krejci might want to start proving he’s a No. 1 center and leave the coaching and general managing to those responsible for those tasks. After all, it didn’t sound Friday like general manager Peter Chiarelli was going to look to move any of his top-six forwards, so Krejci’s here to stay.

After a season where he scored a career-high 23 goals but only matched his 62 points from a year ago, Krejci shouldn’t have much to complain about. He logged first-line and power-play minutes throughout the season and, most glaringly, posted a minus-5 rating, which was his first minus NHL season since 2007-08.

He’s focused on getting back on the plus side next year, although again it sounds like he’s more interested in proving people wrong than being a positive force for the Bruins.

“Obviously when you’re in the minus, the coaches they overlook you if they need somebody to go take a faceoff,” he said. “I know [Patrice Bergeron’s] their go-to guy all the time but it’s not only him, there’s two other forwards. I remember I used to be one of those forwards [that was counted on] but I wasn’t this year. So I definitely want that back and it basically starts with the plus/minus. I wasn’t happy with the plus/minus so I’m going to try to be not only plus, but double digits next year.”

Rather than revealing a little jealousy of Bergeron, who this year was a Selke Trophy finalist for the first time, Krejci might consider emulating his teammate. Bergeron is a model of consistency who takes care of his own end before thinking offense and has improved every single season, despite his development hitting a speed bump with the severe concussion he suffered in 2007. Krejci has to earn that type of responsibility.

Maybe Krejci wanted Tyler Seguin on his line earlier than head coach Claude Julien made that move. Of course, the minuses started piling up when Seguin jumped on Krejci’s right wing in the regular season. Or maybe Krejci had some other line combinations in his head that didn’t make it out of Julien’s mouth from behind the bench.

Regardless, it’s not Krejci’s job to coach or manage. When you were a minus-5 for the season and your season featured several multi-week stretches where you registered just a point or two, and you were virtually a non-factor in the postseason, you probably don’t have the leverage to do other peoples’ jobs.

There’s a lot of money riding on Krejci blossoming into a No. 1 center for the long haul. To do that, he has to go out and produce and filter his “displeasure” with things around him into points and goals.

Matt Kalman covers the Bruins for CBSBoston.com. He operatesTheBruinsBlog.net and also contributes coverage to NHL.com and several other media outlets. Follow him on twitter @TheBruinsBlog.

The Bruins say they should be practicing and not packing for the offseason.  Brad Marchand expressed disappointment that the team didn’t fare better.

“We weren’t there to play every single night and if we had just been a little more prepared, maybe it could have worked a little differently,” Marchand said.

Beyond that lack of spark, the Bruins were also dealing with injuries. Nathan Horton and Adam McQuaid were out, and Patrice Bergeron revealed that he was playing through a serious oblique strain.

“It was just hard to battle,” Bergeron said. I felt it first in Game 3 and it got worse in Game 5.”

David Krejci said he’s had a hard time thus far in moving on from the series.

“Especially when you go home and trying to fall asleep and you know that one goal could have made a difference,” Krejci said.

Plain old fatigue was a factor, too. Coach Claude Julien noted the Bruins played over 200 games in two years. Now it’s more time for more rest than the Bruins wanted.

Bergeron revealed Friday that the injury was a badly strained oblique, which was the reason for his limited role in the series. He also said he broke his nose.

HURLEY: Bergeron The Model Bruin, Even In Defeat

After taking 1,641 faceoffs during the regular season (and winning 59.3 of them), Bergeron took just one draw combined in Games 6 and 7.

“It had an impact, I think, as far as faceoffs were concerned,” coach Claude Julien said after the Game 7 loss in overtime. “You look at tonight, and we really struggled, especially with our right-handed centermen. That’s where a guy like Bergeron comes in handy, and when you win draws, you start with the puck, so we didn’t start with the puck as much as we’d like to tonight, and that certainly wears on you throughout the game.”

Bergeron said that he suffered the oblique injury in Game 3, a 4-3 win, and aggravated it again in Game 5, a 4-3 loss.

He said he won’t need surgery but just needs time to let the injury heal.

McQuaid told reporters Friday at the team’s breakup day that he was indeed dealing with the aftermath of a concussion.

The blue-liner suffered the injury on March 29, when Washington’s Jason Chimera went full speed from his own bench to behind the Bruins’ net to lay a hit on McQuaid. Chimera was given a major penalty for charging, which resulted in an automatic game misconduct. McQuaid left the game and didn’t return.

The initial reports from the Bruins did not specifically say McQuaid had a concussion, only that he wasn’t feeling “quite right.”

McQuaid did return to the ice for one game on April 5, though he skated just 7:00 that night.

McQuaid was unable to play at all during the first-round series against Washington, but he said Friday he’s starting to feel a little bit better.

The “if” in the Bruins’ case relates to the Capitals’ game-winning goal in overtime of Game 7 of Wednesday night. The goal came on a shot that Tim Thomas never saw, because Caps forward Mike Knuble had skated directly into the goaltender as Joel Ward pounced on a rebound and buried it, ending the Bruins’ season and sending the Capitals to the second round.

Thomas didn’t complain much after the loss, but former NHL referee Kerry Fraser wrote on TSN.ca that the goal should have been disallowed.

“In Boston, reality struck when the series ended with a Game 7 overtime goal that was manufactured by Mike Knuble in another example of goalkeeper interference,” Fraser wrote. “Knuble continued on his path entering deep into the goal crease and made sufficient physical contact with the Bruins goalie to knock him off his set position and back toward the goal line.”

Fraser referred to Rule 69.1, which states, “The overriding rationale of this rule is that a goalkeeper should have the ability to move freely within his goal crease without being hindered by the actions of an attacking player. If an attacking player enters the goal crease and, by his actions, impairs the goalkeeper’s ability to defend his goal, and a goal is scored, the goal will be disallowed.”

Fraser’s conclusion was simple.

“It would defy logic to maintain that rule 69, as it is written, was not sufficiently violated for the referee to disallow this goal,” Fraser wrote.

Of course, the fact that the goal came in overtime of a Game 7, with the Capitals bench immediately emptying in celebration, makes disallowing the goal a nearly impossible call for any referee to make. Fraser said, though, that it was a call that should have been made.

“Decisions of this magnitude are never popular but sometimes they just have to be made,” he said.

Bruins coach Claude Julien and general manager Peter Chiarelli were asked Friday for their thoughts on the play and non-call.

“Specifically from the play, I thought it was iffy but I didn’t think it was the wrong call,” Chiarelli said.

“It happened so quickly and you have to look at the replays, but at the same time I really think it was an iffy call to make, whether it was deliberate or not,” Julien said. “Sometimes you have to live with those decisions, unfortunately.”

Watch the video and decide for yourself — should the refs have taken this goal away?

Another nail-biter. Another horrible ending to a game that would end the season too soon because no one wants hockey to end after one round. Not after what we experienced last season!

But here we are, left to wonder why the Bruins could only score 15 goals in this seven-game season, why none of the big boys stepped up to the table, got their noses dirty enough to put rebounds past the young but solid goaltender for the Washington Capitals.  There were a lot of bystanders in this series, and that’s so unlike what this Bruins team has been all about. Where was that snarl?  Where was that nastiness that they needed in order to break down the defensive wall that the Capitals had put up and relentlessly did not give in?

It wasn’t about Washington’s offensive prowess because the Bruins’ defense pretty effectively shut down the likes of Alexander Ovechkin, Alexander Semin, Brooks Laich and Nicklas Backstrom. It came to the likes of Milan Lucic, and Patrice Bergeron, although limited, not scoring a goal in the series. Third line center Rich Peverley had the most goals on the team with three. David Krejci was virtually missing in action, and as cliche as it may be, the Bruins’ best players were not their best players by a long shot.

The big thing for Boston was the fact that in consecutive playoff years, the power play was non-existent. They scored just two goals with the man advantage in 23 opportunities, none larger that with just over two minutes left in the third period of Game 7 on what was really a questionable holding call. This power play was abysmal for two seasons now and obviously has not been addressed. The coach spoke about the fact that they had no one like Marc Savard on it. Well, it’s been a known fact that Savard ain’t walking through that locker room door for the past two seasons, yet what we’ve seen is what we have gotten and it did not change from playoff year to playoff year.

Shot selection, too, was weak for the most part. Most of the time the Bruins settled for the point shot and more often failed to get it through to the net. Often, shots were into the netminder’s pads or glove. Note to Bruins shooters: Get good, hard, low shots above the 11 inches of padding goalies wear!

The Bruins were tired, weary, passive and injured, lacking the will and want of last year.

Whatever the reason, this was a different Boston Bruins team than its winning predecessor. Maybe we were looking through Black and Gold colored glasses thinking that everything would be all right and come together last night. Tim Thomas would again be the brick wall he was last year, Brad Marchand would be the “Little Ball of Hate”, Bergy would be Bergy, and we would all get no sleep again until mid-June.

That was not to be. Now, the speculation on changes and trades and free agents begin. Somehow, I’m just not quite ready for that. First-round eliminations are just too hard to take. It ended quick and painful and way too soon.

Ric Duarte has covered hockey and the Bruins for various media outlets since 1986. You can follow Ric at BruinsDieHard.com and at twitter @bruins_diehard.

Did the Capitals out play the Bruins in the entire series? Did the right team win?

Will last year’s championship give this team a pass on not winning this year? How desperate is this team for a pure scorer?

Were the Bruins more focused on preventing goals, as opposed, to getting their own goals?

That was the case on Wednesday night in the aftermath of the Capitals’ Game 7 victory over the Boston Bruins, when Joel Ward scored the game-winning goal in overtime. Ward is one of the small group of NHL players who are black, and his dramatic goal prompted dozens of Twitter users to send out a barrage of racist, hate-fueled messages about Ward.

The Bruins responded with a terse statement Thursday afternoon on their website.

“The Bruins are very disappointed by the racist comments that were made following the game last night. These classless, ignorant views are in no way a reflection of anyone associated with the Bruins organization.”

The NHL also issued a brief statement, saying:

“The racially charged comments distributed via digital media following last night’s game were ignorant and unacceptable. The people responsible for these comments have no place associating themselves with our game.”

Ward told USA Today he didn’t know about the controversy until his teammate Jeff Halpern showed him on the flight back to D.C.

“I’m definitely getting a lot of support,” Ward said. “There have been a lot of Boston fans who have supported me, which is very cool to see. No hard feelings from me. This is a game,” Ward told the paper, adding that the tweets were ”shocking to see,” but didn’t ruin his day.

It was a disappointing display of humanity, according to Ward’s Boston-based agent, Peter Cooney.

“It’s appalling,” Cooney told The Globe And Mail. “Where we are in North America now, it’s hard to believe we still have that prejudice. It’s disturbing. It’s really disgraceful.”

Cooney stressed that the hateful tweets do not represent the views of any majority of Bruins fans, Bostonians, or any other group.

“I think it’s a very small amount of people,” he told the newspaper. “I’d like to think that anyway. With [social media], these people get to have a platform that they can put this out there, and it’s too bad. I think if they knew Joel, they would not have this attitude.”

Cooney also said that he doesn’t expect Ward to be affected by the tweets, almost all of which are unsuitable to be reprinted.

“He’s heard about it, but he said, ‘Peter, don’t worry. That stuff never bothered me,’” Cooney said.

Capitals owner Ted Leonsis also discussed the tweets on his personal blog.

“What these people have said and done is unforgivable,” Leonsis wrote. “I hope they are now publicly identified and pay a huge price for their beliefs. There should be zero tolerance for this kind of hate mongering. Their messages should now stay glued into the algorithms to place a forever warning and a mark upon these people and their actions. They shouldn’t be able to escape their keystrokes.”

The Capitals organization also released a statement.

“We are aware of some of the racial comments that were made following our overtime victory last night and are outraged by those individuals who expressed such ignorant comments. We find such comments to be totally unacceptable.”

The adrenaline was pumping and then Zo described it as hitting a wall. Devastating was the word Gresh used to describe the ending of the Bruins season. The guys both feel that the Bruins played well, they just didn’t execute when it mattered.

Gresh and Zo also looked at post game audio from Bruins Head Coach Claude Julien where he mentions Marc Savard’s past effectiveness on the power play.

Was Julien sending a message to the Bruins front office asking for power play help?

The Bruins’ captain was named a Norris Trophy finalist, along with Nashville’s Shea Weber and Ottawa’s Erik Karlsson. The news comes the morning after Chara and the Bruins were eliminated from the playoffs in overtime of Game 7 against the Capitals.

The award is given to “the defense player who demonstrates throughout the season the greatest all-around ability in the position” and is voted on by members of the Professional Hockey Writers Association.

Chara led all NHL defensemen with a plus-33 rating and, at the age of 35, posted a career-high 52 points (12-40-52). He’s a Norris finalist for the fourth time in the past five seasons and won the award in 2009.

Weber posted a career-best plus-21 rating while scoring 19 goals and assisting on 30 more, and he’s a finalist for the second straight year. Karlsson led all defensemen with 78 points (19-59-78), finishing the season with 25 points more than any other defenseman. The 21-year old finished with a plus-16 rating on a team with just a plus-9 goal differential overall.

That’s probably why Bruins fans love Patrice Bergeron so much.

At just 26 years old, there’s not much the Bruins’ center hasn’t accomplished in the hockey world. He helped lead the Bruins to their first Stanley Cup in 39 years with 20 points in 25 games last spring, won Olympic gold with Team Canada in 2010, won a World Championship gold in ’04, had 70-plus point seasons, led the league in plus-minus. He’s one of the most respected players in the sport, and he has nothing left to prove to anybody. It would be easier for Bergeron to rest on his laurels after his team was eliminated from the playoffs in overtime of a Game 7, but the Bruins’ alternate captain never takes the easy road.

“Well, it’s hard to swallow, tough to understand right now,” a disconsolate Bergeron said minutes after the sudden death loss. “I think, obviously, it’s going to take us a couple of days to sink that one in, we obviously weren’t ready for being done right now.”

As he spoke, his eyes drifted and his voice was shaky. After playing through an undisclosed injury in Games 6 and 7 that prevented him from taking faceoffs, Bergeron was a somewhat broken man standing in the Bruins’ dressing room. Despite that, he did his best to answer all questions asked of him.

“Yeah, I mean it’s, you know, it’s hard,” Bergeron said. “I think we have a lot of character in this room and we showed that all year, but it’s tough right now to, I guess swallow and to realize it’s over so I’m going to need a couple of days to answer anything.”

While a dejected Bergeron wasn’t quite able to put too much in perspective, his coach didn’t mince words when discussing the effect of Bergeron’s absence at the faceoff dot.

“Well, it had an impact, I think, as far as faceoffs were concerned. You look at tonight, and we really struggled, especially with our right-handed centermen,” Claude Julien said after the Capitals won 54 percent of Game 7′s draws. “[Chris Kelly] did a great job, and put on the right side between [David] Krejci and [Rich] Peverley, we didn’t do a very good job. That’s where a guy like Bergeron comes in handy, and when you win draws, you start with the puck, so we didn’t start with the puck as much as we’d like to tonight, and that certainly wears on you throughout the game.”

Like the rest of his teammates who spoke to the media after the game, Bergeron appeared to find no solace in any of last year’s accomplishments. Winning the Cup last June didn’t remove any of the sting this year.

“Last year, we got the bounces, we got them our way. It wasn’t the case tonight,” Bergeron said. “It’s really hard right now to think about anything else than what just happened.”

On the ice, Bergeron is a model player, valuing defense above offense while still possessing elite skills. But off the ice, he’s even more impressive. He’s a young man who nearly lost his career due to brain trauma that sidetracked him at just 22 years old. He was given a second hockey life, and he’s reached the NHL’s highest point, scoring what proved to be the game-winning goal in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final last year. Yet, he strives for more and is anything but satisfied after this year’s first-round exit.

He won’t become a back-to-back Cup champion this year, but even in injury and defeat, he’s further cemented his status as the model Bruin.

Read more from Michael by clicking here, or follow him on Twitter@michaelFhurley.

The next goal came from Washington’s Joel Ward 2:57 into overtime to eliminate the Bruins from the playoffs.

98.5 The Sports Hub’s Bruins color analyst and former Bruin, Bob Beers spoke with Toucher & Rich about the Bruins’ first round exit, the future of Tim Thomas and last year’s long season.

Tim Thomas’ contract is up at the end of next year and his no trade clause gets waived come July 1st. What does Beers think the future holds for the 38 year old goalie?

“The overwhelming theory is that it’s time for Tuukka to step in. Tim Thomas has been fantastic for this team, he has another year left on his contract so I’m not discounting the fact that he might be here. There’s a possibility he might be back.”

The Bruins were unable to convert on any one of their three power play opportunities last night and only scored two power play goals all series long. Who is to blame for this poor power play, are we at a point where it’s the coaching and not the players?

“There has to be a collective change there in terms of their approach or how they’re working things. I need to see more movement, I need to see less for the lack of a better word robotic, I need to see more flow to that power play and it’s just not happening right now.”

Shawn Thornton sat out Game Six in favor of Jordan Caron. The thought was that if Patrice Bergeron became unable to go Caron could be moved up to fill in. Was this the reason why Thornton sat out Game Seven as well?

“Maybe and maybe because they won in Game Six. I would have liked to have probably seen Shawn Thornton out there just experience wise, winning the Cup twice.”

The guys also discussed the factor last year’s long run and celebration might have played in this year’s season.

That 20-year-old, second-year NHLer, who spent a lot of the regular season and most of the first four-sevenths of the Bruins’ series with Washington avoiding getting his pretty nose dirty, paid the price.

Tyler Seguin scored the Bruins’ lone goal in Boston’s 2-1 overtime loss to Washington on Wednesday in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference quarterfinals. He also scored the Bruins’ prior goal, the overtime winner in Game 6 on Sunday.

READ: Bruins Left Wanting One More Bounce

You get the idea that had this been a best-of-nine or best-of-11 series, Seguin might’ve had to score all of the Bruins’ goals, because it didn’t look like too many of his teammates were ever going to pay the necessary price to light the lamp.

And that’s where the Bruins lost this series. Their star players were pedestrian, and that’s putting it kindly. Players that were once thought of as kings of clutch — Milan Lucic, Brad Marchand and David Krejci — might have now reversed a great deal of their positive playoff reputations.

In seven games against the Capitals, the Bruins, who tied Philadelphia for the second-most goals in the NHL during the regular season (260), scored just 15 goals. Eight of those goals came from defensemen or players you’d consider bottom-six forwards. Rich Peverley, who played in Boston’s top six because of Nathan Horton’s injury, scored three goals.

Then there was the alleged cream of Boston’s crop. Seguin broke out of his scoreless drought with two goals and one assist over the final two games of the series. But after failing to register a point in Game 7, Lucic (0-3-3), Marchand (1-1-2), Patrice Bergeron (0-2-2) and David Krejci (1-2-3) let the Bruins down.

Bergeron was battling through an upper-body injury severe enough to keep him from taking faceoffs. What was the other guys’ excuse?

There’s no excuse. And now despite last year’s run to the Stanley Cup championship, you have to wonder about the mettle of some of Boston’s core forwards. Lucic admittedly was barely himself in registering just 12 points in 25 postseason games last season. He did nothing to make up for that this season.

Krejci has now put up 1-3-4 totals in 14 first-round games. And Marchand, one of the biggest heroes of the triumph over Vancouver, is now 1-for-2 in his brief NHL career in terms of rising to the occasion.

You have to grant Washington rookie goaltender Braden Holtby (.940 save percentage) his share of credit. Capitals head coach Dale Hunter’s game plan, which might not have worked had his team not been able to grab so many leads, might’ve created a blueprint for other teams to beat the Bruins (or for the Bruins to fix something within their system before next season). The rest of Washington’s players, in particular their top four defensemen of John Carlson, Karl Alzner, Mike Green and Roman Hamrlik, made sure Hunter’s plots worked, and it helped that everyone chipped in to block 139 shots.

But what might make the aftermath of the loss to the Capitals and the Bruins’ offseason all the more painful is that in the end, the Bruins didn’t play their best throughout the series. They didn’t test the Capitals the way they needed to be tested. And most of all, it was the guys who get paid the big pucks to produce the big performances that came up small.

There’s plenty of credit to go around for the Capitals’ win. And there’s plenty of blame for the Bruins’ loss. Most of the reasons for the Bruins’ demise can be found in the Bruins’ top six.

Matt Kalman covers the Bruins for CBSBoston.com. He operatesTheBruinsBlog.net and also contributes coverage to NHL.com and several other media outlets. Follow him on twitter @TheBruinsBlog.

So this year, as the Boston Bruins deal with the reality of being eliminated in the first round at the hands of the Washington Capitals, they know why their season is over: They didn’t get the bounces.

Sure, the power play was a disappointment, and the offense as a whole seemed to be lacking, but the Bruins were matched up against a well-coached team full of very talented players. The play, as evidenced by all seven games being determined by one goal, was a wash. In a series that tight, the difference between a win and a loss was often one simple bounce of a puck.

“To win, you need some breaks, and it seemed those were the things that maybe we were missing [this year] from last year,” captain Zdeno Chara said after Boston’s 2-1 overtime loss in Game 7 on Wednesday night. “Every game was decided by one goal. They played well, so it doesn’t mean we played bad. It’s just one of those things that one bounce goes their way and decides the game.”

It was a common refrain around an otherwise quiet Bruins dressing room.

“Definitely disappointing and like I said, we just couldn’t get that one bounce to give us the win,” Milan Lucic said.

KALMAN: B’s Biggest Stars Come Up Small In Playoff Defeat

“Last year, we got the bounces, we got them our way. It wasn’t the case tonight,” said Patrice Bergeron, who battled through an undisclosed injury and was clearly affected in Games 6 and 7.

Tyler Seguin, who scored the Bruins’ lone goal after netting the overtime game-winner on Sunday, echoed the bad bounce sentiment.

“Sometimes, that’s how it goes,” said Seguin, who scored twice this series after leading the team with 29 goals during the regular season. “You don’t get bounces or the goalie just stands on his head and makes great saves at great times. I thought we worked pretty hard tonight and I don’t see anybody walking away with any regrets.”

If it sounds as if the Bruins are making excuses for their first-round exit, it shouldn’t. Their comments come from experience, so they know that it takes more than hard work and good coaching to win a playoff series. They know it also requires a bit of good fortune.

“We got the bounces and went all the way and won [last year], and tonight they got the bounce in the end and now they’re moving on,” Johnny Boychuk said.

“That’s the way it is. That’s sport,” Chara added. “It’s always a disappointment [to lose] but I think this team has overcome a lot of different obstacles this season, and we should keep our heads high.  … Again, it’s sport. … That’s the way it is.”

If it was the Bruins’ lacking that one bounce, it was the Capitals taking advantage of every fortunate break they got. Midway through the first period, Lucic appeared poised to carry the puck end to end, but the puck got stuck in some snow along the boards in the Bruins’ own end. Jason Chimera jumped on the loose puck and passed it to the John Carlson at the blue line. Carlson’s shot was deflected from the slot past Thomas for the game’s first goal.

In overtime, Benoit Pouliot fired a slap shot from the neutral zone in an attempted dump-in from the front of the Bruins’ bench. The shot didn’t go far, though, deflecting off a leg and leading Mike Knuble to a 2-on-1 with Joel Ward. Thomas stopped Knuble’s initial shot, but the rebound trickled right to Ward, who buried the game-winner and swiftly ended the Bruins’ season.

“Pouliot went to dump it in, and he hit one of their players with the puck, and it just bounced out,” coach Claude Julien said after the game. “That puck gets in deep, we’re making a line change, and we’re making a good line change, but when it hit their player and bounced out, that’s when things kind of turned sour on us, and we weren’t able to recover.”

In losing, the Bruins become the 12th straight defending champion to fail at winning back-to-back Stanley Cups. They’ve been through the gauntlet that comes with receiving every team’s best effort from October through April, and though they suffered a postseason series loss to end the year, they’ll begin next season as one of 30 teams.

LISTEN: Zdeno Chara Discusses Disappointment 

While many players referred to next year, they all admitted it will take a while before they can move past what took place in Game 7.

“It’s such a weird feeling. You play hard, it’s a tight game and suddenly a bounce goes against you and suddenly the season’s over,” said Dennis Seidenberg, who worked alongside Zdeno Chara to largely neutralize superstar Alex Ovechkin throughout the series. “For the first few minutes, and even right now, you’re wondering what time practice is tomorrow, but there is no practice. I mean it’s going to be a long summer and we have to get ready for next year again.”

Bergeron, at his locker, struggled to find words to answer most questions asked of him.

“It’s tough right now to swallow and realize that it’s over, so I need a couple of days to think to answer anything,” Bergeron said. “It’s really hard right now to think about anything else than what just happened.”

Read more from Michael by clicking here, or follow him on Twitter@michaelFhurley.

How confident are Bruins fans going into tonight’s game? Felger and Mazz went on to break down some numbers by the Bruins In Game 7′s. How has this team changed since last year?

Boston Bruins radio analyst Bob Beers joined Felger and Mazz on the scene to preview tonight’s game. What does Bob expect tonight? What’s Bob confidence level in Tim Thomas?

98.5 The Sports Hub is the only place to hear every game of the Stanley Cup Champion Boston Bruins 2011-12 NHL season with Dave Goucher and Bob Beers. Pregame coverage begins 30 minutes before the puck drops, with Postgame coverage following each game.

Overtime, 18:46, 1-1: The Bruins had a doorstep chance at an open net but missed just wide. B’s just iced the puck so a faceoff is coming in their end.

Overtime, 20:00, 1-1: We’re under way. This game could end in a flash. As a reminder, there aer no TV timeouts in overtime, so my updates will be as extensive as possible, given the time constraints.

End Of Regulation, 1-1: Go and get yourself some food and drinks, because we’re heading to sudden death overtime in Game 7.

There’s not much to say at this point. An entire season will come down to one play. A team’s season will end on a bad bounce. There’s nothing like this in sports. So take some deep breaths during this intermission, because you’ll need some air when the puck drops for OT.

Third period, 20.3 seconds, 1-1: That power play went just like most of the B’s power plays have this series: poorly.

The best chance came when Brian Rolston crossed the blue line and fired on net and followed up on his own rebound, but alas, the B’s have nothing to show for it.

Third period, 2:26, 1-1: You pretty much have to tackle someone to get a penalty with 2:26 left in Game 7. Jason Chimera just pretty much tackled someone.

The B’s head on the much-maligned power play with a chance to make up for a series’ worth of struggles. All 17,565 are on their feet.

Third period, 3:58, 1-1: And … exhale. The Bruins kill off the Caps’ power play, but only due to Dennis Seidenberg’s diving block of an Ovechkin blast from close range. The puck was bound for the back of the net, but Seidenberg’s effort kept this game scoreless and the season still alive.

The penalty kill ended with a 2-on-1 Bruins rush with Paille and Campbell, but the cross-ice pass was broken up.

Regardless, this was the final TV timeout of the game, so strap in. We’re either getting a dramatic finish now or we’re heading to overtime.

Third period, 9:00, 1-1: Hold your breath, Bruins fans. The Capitals are on the power play.

Bergeron goes to the box for hooking. Biggest kill of the year is on the way for Boston.

Third period, 9:45, 1-1: The game takes another break for a TV timeout, and we’re left with just 9:45 left in regulation. For the sake of hearts across New England and in this building, I hope it doesn’t go to overtime. I think people have been put through enough stress this series. At the same time, overtime of a Game 7 is only the greatest thing in sports, so to witness that would be something special.

Of course, that’s a long way away. We’ve got 9:45 to sort it all out.

Third period, 13:00, 1-1: Dennis Seidenberg has scored a couple of times as a Bruin from the neutral zone, and he just made his best attempt to catch Holtby cheating there. Seidenberg carried the puck across the red line and looked to be firing a dump-in around the boards. He adjusted his body, though, and fired on net. Holtby had only started to lean toward the corner, so he recovered in time to get either his blocker or right shoulder on it.

With a 27-15 shot advantage, the Bruins are clearly the team generating more offense right now. We learned in Game 1 though that the Capitals are just fine with playing that way, looking to catch one bounce to get one rush to score one goal on one shot.

Third period, 16:25, 1-1: That power play was bad, even by the Bruins’ standard of bad power plays. They got nothing out of it.

Third period, 18:42, 1-1: Roman Hamrlik heads to the box for holding Milan Lucic’s stick. Big oppotunity on the way for Boston.

Third period, 20:00, 1-1: The puck is dropped. Game on.

End Second, 1-1: The B’s and Caps head back to their dressing rooms tied at one. Their play over the next 20 minutes will send one team to the next round and one team home for the summer. Which will it be?

Second Period, 1-1, 2:08: Great follow-up shift from Seguin, as he battles through some rough stuff off a faceoff and flies to a loose puck in the offensive end. The kid is feeling it now.

In the physicality department, we’re seeing scrums after almost every whistle now, something lacking dearly in the first. Marchand just got in Mike Green’s face after the latter gave Patrice Bergeron a healthy shove for taking a wack at a puck in Holtby’s pads.

In other words: It’s looking like a Game 7.

Second Period, 1-1, 5:33: Tyler Seguin buries a puck that squirted through Holtby after a Boychuk bomb, and this one is tied.

It won’t make Seguin’s highlight reel, but it was a gritty, gutty goal, as he muscled his way through two bodies to bury the loose puck in the crease.

The building’s alive once more and we’ve got a whole new game.

Second period, 6:27, 1-0 Capitals: That was quite the stretch of uninterrupted hockey, but there’s not too much to report. Brian Rolston did have an open net staring him in the face, but he wasn’t able to get the right angle to the puck to bury it.

The Caps had some solid sustained pressure but were unable to get any quality scoring chances.

There was one point when the referee at center ice appeared to call a penalty on the Capitals when the puck was in the Bruins’ end, but after a brief meeting, there was no penalty called and they dropped the puck at center ice. I’m not sure what happened there.

Second period, 12:41, 1-0 Capitals: The home crowd wanted a penalty called when Chris Kelly fell to the ice on a 2-on-2 rush, but to me, it looked like Kelly was diving for the puck and seemed like a good non-call. A few seconds later though, John Carlson faked taking a stick to the face, and the refs passed on the opportunity to send him to the box for embellishing.

The B’s lead in shots 15-8, but aside from that Krejci tip earlier in the period, they haven’t gotten a great chance this period.

Second period, 15:23, 1-0 Capitals: Holtby just turned away the best Boston chance of the night, a David Krejci doorstep redirect of a Brad Marchand feed. Holtby was in the right position to make the save, though even he didn’t know exactly where the puck was.

Second period, 20:00, 1-0 Capitals: The second period is under way with the Caps holding their 1-0 lead. We’ll see if the Bruins can cure some of their issues offensively. They did generate some good chances, but they looked a little discombobulated and unable to generate consistence offense.

End First, 1-0 Capitals: The Bruins’ power play looked like … the Bruins’ power play. Not a lot of puck possession, a lot of chasing, and just one shot from about 35 feet is all we saw. They’ll have the advantage for just 10 seconds to start the second.

The crowd’s energy was certainly impacted by the Washington goal, and a lot of fans voiced some displeasure with the power play’s ineffectiveness late in the first.

First period, 2:00, 1-0 Capitals: You can get away with a lot of things in a Game 7, but Jeff Schultz just got penalized for a pretty blatant trip of Marchand in the open ice. The struggling B’s power play takes the ice with 1:50 left in the first.

First period, 4:24, 1-0 Capitals: That was an interesting scene, as a pigpile of bodies stacked up between the two teams’ benches. I didn’t see how it started or who was at the bottom of it from my perspective, but it was a white jersey lying on the ice when the dust cleared.

Play never did stop, as we’re through 15 minutes still without any penalties.

First period, 8:37, 1-0 Capitals: That’ll silence the crowd.

John Carlson fires a wrister from the blue line, and Matt Hendricks, all alone in front, tips it in past Thomas. Credit Carlson for his patience to wait for a lane to open up before letting that one fly.

First period, 9:58, 0-0: Not to belabor a point, but this place is truly as loud as a venue can get. I fear what will happen if the B’s score first — the roof may blow off.

I’ve noticed a couple potential penalties — a trip of Milan Lucic and a hook of Joel Ward — that have gone uncalled, which is exactly what you want to see in a Game 7. That’s especially true if you’re the Bruins.

Shots at 6-2 in favor of the Bruins right now. Saw some great effort from the whole team to block shots and dive to break up passes on the last Capitals possession in the B’s end — exactly what you’d expect in a Game 7.

First period, 14:32, 0-0: The B’s have found their footing, getting four shots in the past three minutes and controlling the puck for much of that time.

Their best chance came on a Mike Mottau bid from the blue line. He was looking for a redirect in front that never came, but it’s exactly how the Bruins will be looking to beat Braden Holtby tonight.

First period, 17:12, 0-0: Tim Thomas has the only save of the night thus far, coming far out of his crease. That could mean the goaltender is feeling awfully confident.

We also saw the first big collision of the night between Alex Ovechkin and Dennis Seidenberg. I don’t expect it to be the last.

First period, 20:00: Marchand, Peverley and Bergeron (at wing) along with Ference and Boychuk take the ice first for Boston, and we’re under way.

7:37 p.m.: I have to tell you, I’ve been to the Garden many times, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard it as loud as it has been for the past five minutes. The fans and the atmosphere are going to have an impact in this one.

The B’s and Caps just took the ice, and we’re only a national anthem away from puck drop.

7:14 p.m.: We’re just minutes from puck drop here at the Garden. The B’s are finishing their warmups after coming out to “Coming Home” by Diddy.

5 p.m.: It’s finally time for Game 7.

After an excruciating two-day wait in Boston, we’re finally ready for hockey, with the Bruins and Capitals facing off for Game 7 tonight at the TD Garden.

It’s already been the closest series in NHL history, with all six games being decided by one goal, so we expect nothing different for this one.

Patrice Bergeron is expected to play, but he didn’t take any faceoffs during the morning skate. That indicates he could once again stay away from the faceoff dot as he deals with an undisclosed injury.

I’ll have live updates all night from the Garden, from the lines in pregame warmups until the final score, so check back routinely throughout the game.

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“There’s a lot of people that will say the first round is the toughest round a lot of years and I guess it’s proven to be the case again this year, because this series has been so close with all six game here decided by a goal.”

98.5 The Sports Hub’s Bruins play-by-play announcer Dave Goucher joined Gresh & Zo to discuss this key Game Seven, Patrice Bergeron’s status, Capitals goalie Braden Holtby and how a play-by-play guy gets ready for a game like this.

Bruins center Patrice Bergeron took limited face offs in Game Six and reports said he’s battling some sort of upper body injury. What percent is the center at?

“There’s no question he is limited, the fact that he only took that one draw tells you a lot.”

Also, what did the Bruins learn from last year’s Cup run that could help them out tonight?