With Claude Julien back from the World Cup of Hockey, the first cuts of Bruins main training camp are expected in the next 24 hours.
Julien was behind the bench Saturday night in Philadelphia, where the B's posted a shootout win over the Flyers. The Bruins have had more than 50 players in camp and available for the first four exhibition games, and now some veterans -- just like Julien, who was on Team Canada's coaching staff -- are back from the World Cup. David Pastrnak and Dave Backes made their preseason debuts Saturday, and Patrice Bergeron, Brad Marchand, Christian Ehrhoff and Zdeno Chara will return this week.
Their presence will bring a sense of normalcy back to camp, but will also require the B's to start reducing their numbers in main camp.
“I think we need to bring our numbers down,” Julien, who gave everybody the day off on Sunday after a solid first 10 days of camp in Boston, said late last week. “[The World Cup of Hockey] players need some rest, and I think they’re gonna get it. They’re not showing up here until Monday morning, and they will probably get some other days off this week. But I think the goal in talking to them and looking at our situation was that they didn’t feel comfortable taking too many days off straight. They didn’t want to lose that edge. They’ve got an opportunity to rest, get on the ice sooner than later and then rest again. That’s the best approach for our group.”
While the numbers clearly need to be cut down with only three preseason games remaining before Boston’s Oct. 13 opener, there’s also the Monday opening of Providence Bruins training camp in Rhode Island.. One could expect junior players like Jesse Gabrielle and Jeremy Lauzon to potentially be returned to their teams in Canada, and others earmarked for Providence like Tommy Cross, Chris Breen and Tim Schaller to be headed there at the beginning of next week as well.