B’S PASTRNAK BACK IN BLACK AND GOLD
‘He looks great, probably needs a haircut,’ Cassidy jokes
The news that Bruins coach Bruce Cassidy dispensed in his first Zoom press conference from the bubble city of Toronto was not all good, but it was at least promising on the most important front.
Cassidy said B’s leading scorer and Rocket Richard
Trophy co-winner David
Pastrnak did indeed travel with the team Sunday evening and practiced with the team on Monday afternoon.
Nick Ritchie, who missed four practices during Phase 3, also traveled with the team but did not practice.
Ondrej Kase, who like Pastrnak missed all the team practices in Phase 3, did not travel. Cassidy said Kase will arrive some time later.
Players who fly into the hub cities commercially are required to quarantine for four days, so it might be a while before we see Kase on the ice.
A surprise absentee from practice was captain Zdeno Chara, who was held out by a testing glitch.
“The team did not receive Zdeno’s test results from (Sunday) and as such are keeping him out at direction of medical advisers until they receive the result,” said the club in a statement.
Cassidy said that, with Sunday being an off day, he didn’t plan to scrimmage during Monday’s practice, but that Pastrnak would drop right into his regular right wing spot next to
Patrice Bergeron and Brad Marchand during line rushes.
Cassidy was not overly concerned with Pastrnak being out of shape.
“He looks great, probably needs a haircut,” cracked
Cassidy. “Other than that, I expect him to be ready to go and excited to be back with his teammates. You know Pasta. He loves the game, loves being around his teammates. He’s got a lot of personality, very gregarious young guy. It’s good to have him back. I expect he’ll pick up fairly quickly. But until we see him and get him out there in the drills, that’s tough to tell. But like I said with all our group, I did not think our conditioning would be an issue. Our guys are excellent with that. The whole pause, they worked on it and you could tell the first or second day of practice. I don’t think David will be any different.”
The B’s have a handful of practices and Thursday’s exhibition against the Columbus Blue Jackets before the games start to matter with the first roundrobin game on Sunday against the Flyers. And while the round-robin games will determine seeding for the top four teams in each conference, the B’s won’t have to play any door-die games until all the play-in series are decided.
Pastrnak’s centerman expects he will need to kick some rust off, but Bergeron didn’t sound very worried about it.
“First of all, for us the chemistry is usually something we pick up wherever we left off,” said Bergeron. “He just has to get used to getting back on the ice, skating and getting his rhythm back, his timing and all that. For us, yeah, we’re going to try to help him as much as we can. I don’t know if he really needs all that much help. He’s one of those guys who gets back, he’s so talented, he always seems effortless, so I’m expecting him to get back and obviously, he might be rusty a little bit, but that being said, we have a little bit of time before we start.”
And the team feels a little more whole having the happy-go-lucky Pastrnak back in the fold.
“Pasta always enjoys himself out there. I don’t know if you could catch him without a smile on his face,” said
Sean Kuraly. “He’s a fun guy to have out there. He brings, obviously, his talent and skills, but he’s also a valued member of our team and he’s a fun guy to have out there in practice.”
One interesting development with the return of Pastrnak: Jack Studnicka kept his spot as the second-line right wing on a line with
David Krejci and Jake DeBrusk while Anders Bjork, who had been skating in Pastrnak’s spot, dropped down to split time with Karson Kuhlman as the third-line right wing with Charlie Coyle and Kuraly. Kase was expected to skate with Krejci now there’s no telling how soon, how much or even if he’ll be able to contribute. …
The NHL announced that they had only two positive tests among the 6,874 tests administered during the now-completed Phase 3 portion of the ambitious Return To Play effort. There were no positive tests in the second week of Phase 3, which saw 4,256 tests administered.
That bit of information was decidedly more rosy than what Major League Baseball is experiencing. The Miami Marlins had to cancel their home opener on Monday after as many as 14 players reportedly tested positive for the coronavirus.
“Obviously, it’s a concern,” said Cassidy. “Different sport than ours, obviously. I just think sports in general coming back is good for society, if the players and staff are able to stay healthy and put a good product on the field or on the ice, whatever the case may be, it’ll be good for everybody. Hopefully it’s a one-time incident. I don’t know if it’s related to Florida being a little more of a hot spot right now. So far, we’re all healthy here. I haven’t heard any issues in regards to the National Hockey League players or staff so we’ll be up and on
the ice today and hopefully it stays safe and healthy for everyone.”
While still settling into the team’s digs in Toronto, Cassidy likes what he’s seen from bubble life.
“It appears to be a very safe environment,” said Cassidy. “We’ve only been here a short period of time but it looks like the NHL has done a great job of accommodating teams that are here in terms of spacing and what’s available to them. The meal situation’s going to be excellent with all the restaurants here. There are some entertainment options that will be available to the players that we wouldn’t get at a typical hotel. I think it’s going to all work out fine. We just need to get on the ice, get playing and the bubble life will be like being on the road. You’re on a permanent road trip. Sometimes that can be a positive, the guys are close together and haven’t been much lately with this situation.” …
Because of roster limitations, the B’s had to leave behind veteran AHLer Paul
Carey and Anton Blidh, who has been pushing to make the B’s as a fourth-liner.
“They’re in different situations. Paul’s a veteran guy, he knows his role in Providence, he’s a depth player for us,” said Cassidy. “Anton was a little tougher. We made a decision with
(Trent) Frederick and (Zach) Senyshyn and Anton and it kind of came down to how did they best fit down the road. That was a tough one. Anton did everything that was asked of him. Jack (Studnicka) was a little different, I thought he was a little ahead of those guys. His performance dictated more of his presence here where as the other ones we were looking at filling in down the road and with Zach being a right shot and David and Ondrej not participating, we were a little lighter on right shots at times anyway. … We liked what Zach did for us earlier in the year, unfortunately he got injured and didn’t get another opportunity, so that was intriguing as well.”