Patrice Bergeron, a guy who wasn’t invited to Team Canada’s orientation camp in August, got to the rink Monday and got a nice surprise.

From being on the outside to finding a spot on Canada’s top line as they open the Olympic tournament today against Norway (4:30 p.m. PST), Bergeron felt like like one of the luckiest guys in the world.

“For sure,” said the Boston Bruins forward, “(Crosby)’s such a great player and Rick Nash is an unbelievable player, as well. The two of them, having a chance to play with them is a real honour. I’m just trying to go out there and not get too nervous about playing with them.

“It seems like we find each other on the ice and seems like the chemistry has been pretty good from the get-go.”

Crosby and Bergeron played together at the 2005 world junior tournament with great success – Bergeron was in the middle then and Crosby on the left side – and at the world championships.

“Me and Berg have played together a couple of times now. Hopefully the familiarity there is going to help to adjust quicker,” said Crosby. “Nash and I played together in the summer camp and he’s a pretty straight forward guy to play with, he’s got a lot of speed and tries to use it to the outside. It shouldn’t be too hard to figure everything out.”

Click here to read the full article – By Toronto Sun

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In his younger days, Daniel Paille was expected to be an NHL star.

Unfortunately, Paille’s big league career hasn’t worked out quite as hoped, with 35-41-76 totals in 193 games.

But Paille showed his pedigree Tuesday night in Buffalo, where he scored twice in the Bruins’ 3-2 shootout win against the Sabres. He has played several such standout games in recent weeks, nights on which he was one of the best forwards on the ice.

A winger who has skated on every B’s line since arriving from Buffalo in a late-October trade for a 2010 third-round draft pick, the speedy Paille of late has earned a spot on the No. 1 threesome with center Marc Savard and Miroslav Satan.

“Dan is one of those players, his speed alone creates a lot and his forecheck creates a lot, whichever line he’s been on,” coach Claude Julien said yesterday at the Tampa Bay Lightning’s suburban practice rink. “With Savard, there’s no doubt if he uses that speed, Marc is going to find him.

Click here to read the full article – By Boston Herald

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So much for the Bruins having a full, healthy team.

In one of the better games of their recent skid, the B’s lost defenseman Mark Stuart to a broken pinkie on his right hand in Saturday’s 3-2 shootout loss to the Los Angeles Kings. Stuart was operated on yesterday and will be lost until after the Olympic break.

“The last couple of games I thought (Stuart) was playing some of his best hockey, and we liked his game. Unfortunately, you lose him for 3-4 weeks,” said B’s coach Claude Julien, who just got Marc Savard, Marco Sturm and Steve Begin back from injuries. “It’s the second major injury for him, a guy who’s been as reliable as you can find as far as health issues are concerned until this year.”

Stuart, who suffered a broken sternum earlier in the season, got hurt in one of the turning points of the loss to the Kings. Early in the second period, LA defenseman Peter Harrold sent a breakout pass to Anze Kopitar, and Stuart blasted the Kings’ top scorer. Wayne Simmonds immediately went after Stuart, and the B’s defenseman eagerly obliged.

Click here to read the full article – By Boston Herald

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Marco Sturm is used to putting pucks on net. On Nov. 5 against Montreal, he blasted seven shots on Carey Price. On Oct. 12, he ripped off five on Colorado’s Craig Anderson.

That wasn’t the case last night.

Sturm led all players with nine shots on Mike Smith, two of them beating the Tampa Bay netminder. Sturm recorded his first multi-goal game of 2009-10, while linemates Patrice Bergeron and Mark Recchi recorded 3-point nights, and Tim Thomas turned back 39 of 40 shots as the Bruins recorded a 4-1 win over the Lightning before 16,553 at TD Garden.

“I felt it right from the start,” said Sturm, who has a team-high eight goals. “Right from the first shift, we had a good one there. We kept it going after that.”

Click here to read the full article – By Boston Globe

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The Bruins power play has looked better on the ice than it does on paper.

The unit remains near the bottom of the NHL in efficiency despite the enormous gains it has made the past eight games. The B’s are 26th on the power play list with a paltry 16.5 percent success rate (15-of-91), and they have done better on the road (17.6) than at home (15.8).

They advanced their standing by scoring three man-advantage goals in five chances during Saturday night’s 4-3 shootout victory against the Ottawa Senators at the Garden. The Bruins have scored seven goals in 29 power-play opportunities (24.1 percent) during the past eight games.

The Bruins can advance those numbers tomorrow night when they host the Tampa Bay Lightning, who are ranked 26th in road penalty-kill efficiency at 73 percent.

Click here to read the full article – By Boston Herald

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“Michael Ryder did not have a detailed plan of attack when he skated out for a shootout showdown with Ottawa Senators goalie Brian Elliott on Saturday night at TD Garden.

Ryder had watched as Elliott stoned Patrice Bergeron, Blake Wheeler and David Krejci in the first three rounds of the shootout. At the other end, Bruins goalie Tim Thomas, who’d missed the last six games with an upper-body injury, did an equally effective job on Ottawa’s Alex Kovalev, Jason Spezza and Daniel Alfredsson.

Ryder simply let the puck be his guide as he cruised through the middle of the slot toward his rendezvous with Elliott. He made a quick read, applied a definitive fake and fired a wrist shot that beat Elliott to the glove side.

Thomas then stopped Mike Fisher on the final rush to seal a 4-3 victory and lift the Bruins past the Senators into first place in the Northeast Division.

“I wasn’t sure what I was going to do,” said Ryder. “I just wanted to try and get a high shot on him, and I beat him to the glove side.”

Click here to read the full article – By Boston Herald

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Milan Lucic certainly was the man of the hour at Ristuccia Arena yesterday, the day after he signed a three-year, $12.25 million contract extension that will have him unleashing his thunder for the Bruins [team stats] through the 2012-13 season.

“He’s your prototypical Bruin,” center and linemate Marc Savard said of Lucic. “We all love him here, and obviously the fans do, too.”

B’s general manager Peter Chiarelli, who has been candid on his dislike of the massive new “second” contracts now bloating payrolls across the NHL – contracts exactly like Lucic’s new deal – nonetheless expressed delight at having the big winger locked up.

“His skill set, his character set, his physicality, they’re all just tremendous assets for our organization and typify what it is to be a Bruin,” Chiarelli said. “I really like the way Milan plays, and I love the way he carries himself on and off the ice. He’s done everything he needed to do to get here. He deserves this contract.

“He’s a big body who loves to play the game, and plays with a physical side. He creates his own space. We’ve seen a very good progression and we expect, as evidenced by the contract, that progression to continue.”

Click here to read the full article – By Stephen Harris of Boston Herald

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On a typical Monday last year, Tuukka Rask would be getting a much-needed day of rest. On each of the three previous days, Rask was usually counted on to fill the Providence net, with at least one bus ride mixed in between the games. If all goes according to plan this season, Rask will experience nothing of the sort.

The rookie goalie has yet to appear in a game this season. Given the schedule’s ease (Anaheim at home Thursday, the Islanders at TD Garden Saturday, Colorado on home ice a week from tonight), Rask might not make his first appearance until the Bruins’ two-game road swing Oct. 16-17 (at Dallas and Phoenix).

In years past, that stretch of downtime might have been a big problem for Rask and his team.

Rask, a first-round pick of the Maple Leafs in 2005, has always been The Man. As a teenage pro in Finland, Rask was the No. 1 goalie for Ilves for two seasons. The butterfly goalie was considered one of the best netminders outside of North America.

But like many young stars, the up-and-coming hotshot cruised in practice. When pucks slipped by him, Rask didn’t give it much thought.

Click here to read the full article – By Fluto Shinzawa of Boston Globe

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If the NHL salary cap was at all forgiving, Aaron Ward might still be a member of the Bruins [team stats].

Ward spent two-plus seasons with the B’s, skating alongside captain Zdeno Chara for much of that time. But Ward became a salary cap liability in the offseason when the Bruins reached out to defenseman Derek Morris, the free agent signee who emerged from training camp as Chara’s new defense partner.

Ward and his $2.5 million cap hit were dealt to the Carolina Hurricanes on July 24 for former Boston College forward Patrick Eaves and a 2010 draft pick. Carolina goalie Cam Ward will be protected by Ward when the Bruins host the Hurricanes tonight at the Garden.

The Hurricanes eliminated the B’s in the second round of the playoffs last spring.

Click here to read the full article – By Rich Thompson of Boston Herald

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The Bruins [team stats] handed out thousands of those cheering towels for fans to wave at their home opener last night at TD Garden. The bright yellow towels read, “Hibernation always ends in October.”

There was more excitement around Boston for the start of a Bruins season than there has been in years, but that enthusiasm got doused badly as the B’s opened with a true stinker.

Playing well for perhaps the first 10 minutes, they soon looked flat and sloppy as they were overwhelmed the rest of the night by the Washington Capitals in a 4-1 loss – with Alexander Ovechkin (two goals, one assist) leading the charge.

Click here to read the full article – By Stephen Harris of Boston Herald

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