Two days of training camp are officially in the books for the Boston Bruins. Tomorrow, the team is scheduled to scrimmage before Sunday's preseason opener against the Washington Capitals inside TD Garden.
Today, Marco Sturm expanded practice and had the team work hard on physicality, zone entries, and offensive/defensive zone possessions.
The lines remained untouched from yesterday's practice, with the clear emphasis on guys building chemistry.
Group A:
Group B:
The day ended with every Bruins player paired off with one other, lined up along the wall around the rink. On Sturm's whistle, the players would begin a board battle for possession.
Unsurprisingly, Tanner Jeannot absolutely dominated this drill.
"[He's a] strong guy," said Mark Kastelic, "I saw that firsthand this year in fitness testing. Saw some numbers on the bench press I've never seen before."
Kastelic himself joked about his previous tilt with Jeannot back in 2023, remarking he's happy Jeannot didn't really connect hard, but "he definitely manhandled me a bit," remarked Kastelic.
The chemistry builds. Kastelic, Sean Kuraly, and Mikey Eyssimont combined to dominate during their possession drills, while terrorizing whoever tried to generate offense against them.
Some passes, like one Kastelic made after an excellent rush down below the goal line, did not connect today, but will lead to dynamic chances.
It's something Sturm craves from his bottom-six. Sturm stated Friday afternoon he wants to be able to roll all four lines, no matter who the opposition has on the ice. Sturm wants to trust each skater on his bench in all situations.
Pavel Zacha once again played center today, signaling that's where Sturm will start the versatile Czech veteran.
"He wants me to start at center and go from there," confirmed Zacha after skating on Friday. "So, we'll see how the training camp goes and how we fit in with the new guys."
Sturm also indicated he wants to keep Hampus Lindholm and Andrew Peeke together through camp.
"Right now," Sturm said. "I really like that pair. Are they going to stay together? I don't know. But they definitely had a good first two days."
One tweak from Sturm already is zone entries. What he had the team practice was simple. Two forwards rush in, with the puck carrier staying to the outside. The second forward crashes the net hard, while also opening for a potential pass.
The puck carrier would then curl back and find a defenseman rushing hard into the zone, who would then fire a shot through a set screen from the other forward.
No question about it, everything remains a work in progress. But the Bruins continue to chip away and slowly add pieces to their game, day by day.