The Bruins fell behind 2-0 early against the New York Islanders in Bridgeport on Saturday, but rallied for a 3-2 victory to close out the preseason on a positive note heading into Thursday's regular-season opener against the Flyers.
"I believe we're right on track but we still have five days left and if we use those five days wisely then we should be ready to go," said Bruins goalie Tim Thomas, who finished with 25 saves. "Hopefully it will be a fun night Thursday. Not only are we raising the banner, but it's the first game of the regular season and we start on a whole new journey."
Before that journey could start, the Bruins had to complete their abbreviated preseason. Not only were the Bruins coming off a short offseason after last year's Cup run, but they also had just six exhibition games to get ready to defend that title.
"You always want more," Bruins coach Claude Julien said. "You could play 10 games and you'd still want more. If it's not the number of games, it's the number of practices. I think we're fortunate that we have most of our guys coming back. It's about fine-tuning our game again and just making sure our heads are in the right place and our focus is in the right place."
It took a while for the Bruins to get their heads in the right place on Saturday. The Islanders jumped out to a 2-0 lead early in the second before the Bruins came alive, sparked in large part from a scrap by veteran Chris Clark, who is in camp on a tryout. Clark came out on the wrong end of the decision against Isles tough guy Michael Haley, but his effort did inspire his teammates.
"That second goal against and that scrap," Julien said of what turned the tide in the game. "They score against us and you see your teammate leaving with a bloody nose, I think it kind of gave us a jolt and our guys reacted. As much as there can be a little bit of a negative in as far as waiting for those things to happen to react, there's also the positive side in that we did react, and that's a good sign. I like the way the guys reacted and at the end of the night we won ourselves a hockey game."
The other negative came from the fact that Clark did not return after the fight with what is believed to be a broken nose.
"Obviously he took a whack on the nose," Julien said. "I don't know how bad it is. Sometimes they just put it back in place and sometimes it takes more than that, so I'm not sure."
The Bruins tried to exact some revenge, but rookie tough guy Lane MacDermid's offers to drop the gloves with Haley in the third were rebuffed.
"MacDermid went out and tried to rectify things and [Haley] wanted no part of him," Julien said. "You can't ask for more."
Julien was happy with most of the bubble players competing for the final spots on the roster. In addition to Clark and MacDermid, Max Sauve and Benoit Pouliot had solid games, with Pouliot setting up Tyler Seguin's game-tying goal in the second.
Things didn't go quite as well for defense hopeful Matt Bartkowski, who took a bad holding penalty and made some other costly gaffes. Bartkowski has the inside track on the seventh defense job with Steven Kampfer sidelined with a knee injury, but he still has some work to do.
"Bart had a bit of a struggle tonight," Julien said. "So we'll have to make some decisions here."
All the Bruins had issues early, but the way they rallied in the second half of the game has the Bruins confident that they will be ready for the regular season after posting a 4-1-1 record in the preseason.
"We didn't come out with the intensity we would have liked," said defenseman Dennis Seidenberg, who scored the game-winner in the third. "We were a little sloppy, a little lazy maybe. But after the second goal we came alive. We played with more intensity and a little more jump in our step.
"I think everybody is ready to get going and start playing for real," Seidenberg added. "Everybody is anxious to go."
