Pastrnak & Kase absent, Kuraly skates with Coyle and more takeaways from Day 1 of Bruins camp

For the first time in over four months, a (mostly) full roster of Bruins skaters took to the sheet at Warrior Ice Arena, with Boston opening Phase 3 (training camp) of the NHL’s Return to Play plan on Monday morning.

It wasn’t out of the ordinary for a regular practice conducted by Bruce Cassidy and the Bruins coaching staff, with the club taking part in regular contact drills and other exercises over a session that lasted a little over an hour. 

Here are a few takeaways from Day 1 of Bruins camp:

Pastrnak, Kase among absent skaters:

While it was mostly a full squad on the ice in Brighton, there were a couple of notable omissions — headlined by a pair of top-six wingers in David Pastrnak and Ondrej Kase. 

No need to sound the alarm, however. Speaking on Sunday, Don Sweeney noted that a few skaters would likely be missing in order to meet international quarantine protocols. As such, it isn’t much of a surprise that both Pastrnak and Kase, who both spent a large portion of the NHL’s shutdown in Europe, were both MIA.

Along with Pastrnak and Kase, Bruins assistant coach Kevin Dean and players Trent Frederic, Anton Blidh, Dan Vladar and Urho Vaakanainen were not present for the opening skate on Monday morning, although Cassidy did note that a few skaters would be back on the ice later on Monday. 

"I think with Kase and Pasta, we talked about — because of the timing of when they got here — they have to have enough tests,” Cassidy said. “The rest of the guys — they are some guys going out in a later group, simply because of numbers. And the other guys just aren't able to be here, so I would expect a few more will join us tomorrow and then we'll go from there."

As such, don’t put too much stock into Monday’s lines:

This should be a given at this point, but putting a ton of stock into line combinations during the first few days of camp is a fruitless venture.

Still, here’s a look at what the B’s rolled with on Monday morning:

Marchand – Bergeron – Kuhlman
DeBrusk – Krejci – Bjork
Ritchie – Coyle – Kuraly
Nordstrom – Lindholm – Wagner
Carey – Studnicka – Senyshyn

Chara – McAvoy
Krug – Carlo
Grzelcyk – Lauzon
Moore – Clifton
Zboril

Rask
Halak
Lagace

Obviously, with both Pastrnak and Kase not practicing, these lines are subject to change in a hurry, although the promotion of Kuraly on the third line does raise a few eyebrows — as the speedy forward was slotted in next to Coyle during Boston’s last regular-season game on March 10. 



“Obviously we're missing some right wingers today with Pasta and Kase that are typically in the lineup,” Cassidy said of Boston’s lineup. “So we moved some young guys into their spots. Sean has played a lot of center, a lot of left wing. Not a lot of right wing. It's day one, right? So we have this luxury of doing some of this now.

“Lindholm, Nordstrom and Wagner had played well as a line. I thought Lindy did a real good job in the middle there. So Kuraly, we can move him to different spots in the lineup. Obviously someone would get bumped then, so that's what we did today. Tried him on the right side — you get two guys who can take draws, a pretty accountable line. Does it free up Sean to be a little more creative offensively? Who knows, right? So we'll look at it in practice, see if there's any merit to it.”

Cassidy also handed out some praise to Anders Bjork, who he labeled as “maybe the best player out there” during Day 1 of camp. Even though it’s prudent to not get carried away with observations from just one practice, Cassidy was impressed with his club’s ability to get back to work in short order. 

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"I thought our guy had excellent pace. Execution was pretty good for a first practice,” Cassidy said. “I know a lot of guys have been working, skating, but still as a group with a lot of bodies out there, I thought though the willingness to work was excellent — guys were in a good mood.

“It reminded me of a lot of our practices during the year where guys are working hard, taking care of business but enjoying themselves, having fun and chirping each other. So it's kind of where we left off in terms of the mood and I thought the overall rating of it. I really liked it.”

Masks On: 

While players are allowed to take to the ice without masks (a requirement everywhere else at Warrior), Cassidy and the rest of the coaching staff took part in practice with face coverings on — a move that not every NHL club has followed through the first day of Phase 3.

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Even though coaches will not be required to wear masks on the bench once Phase 4 gets underway, Cassidy did note that the decision to go the extra mile in terms of safety during Phase 3 was encouraged by both the team medical staff and Boston’s health coordinator. 

“Especially early on, with that many players in the ice, a bit of newness, you're going through some new drills. So we'll follow that protocol until we're told differently,” Cassidy said. “I know during the games, we've been told a mask is not necessary. But for now, we'll try to use one as much as possible. Sometimes you do have to lower it to speak, but we're trying to remain respectful of what they've asked us to do and I thought it worked out well today."

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Late afternoon practices?

Even though Cassidy expects most of Boston’s practices at Warrior Ice Arena will be held in the morning, he did open the door for the team to push back a few workouts to later in the afternoon — especially with a number of games in Phase 4 scheduled for unorthodox times such as 4 p.m. in Toronto. 

"I'm anticipating we're going to be the four o'clock games, that's simply me reading between the lines that there's been no inside information from the league,” Cassidy said. “I have discussed with the players having some workouts moved, like maybe every third or fourth workout, to four o'clock. I know that will probably annoy the media, they have to show up in the middle of the day, but for us, it might prepare us better to play. So we will look at that for sure, because I find four is an odd time. You don't get a lot of those during the year."