Chris Kelly

Legend of Carl Soderberg is Coming to Life

For years, Carl Soderberg was a legend–just not in the way that you’d suspect.

Acquired via trade from the St. Louis Blues in exchange for once-promising goaltender Hannu Toivonen in the summer of 2007, Soderberg became a myth of a prospect. He was a player whose NHL rights belonged to the Bruins, but he never made an appearance anywhere in the organization’s pipeline.

The truth was, no one really knew if Soderberg would ever make his way to Boston, especially after playing six seasons in Sweden. Now, more than a quarter into the 2013-14 NHL season, it’s hard to imagine the Bruins roster without the presence of Soderberg on the third line.

Bruins Team-First Philosophy is Key to Success

Before the Florida Panthers and the Boston Bruins could drop the puck on Thursday’s game, Claude Julien’s simple answer to a question about a former teammate set the tone for the entire night.

“They’d be right,” said Julien, when asked if the Bruins don’t win a Stanley Cup without Tim Thomas. He went on a bit further.

“Tim Thomas doesn’t win the Stanley Cup, if our team doesn’t play as well as they did in front of him,” finished the Bruins’ head coach. “So, this is an honest statement: Tim played well but I think our team played just as well in front of him.”

Forget what he said about Thomas. Julien set the tone by stressing the importance of playing as a team, in order to be successful. It was a common theme that came full circle. The Bruins needed to go back to the basics and play their game in order to win. After a bumpy first period, it’s exactly what they did.

The Resurgence of the Boston Bruins’ Third Line

Down 1-0 against the Chicago Blackhawks in Game 2 of the Stanley Cup Final, Bruins’ head coach Claude Julien shuffled up his bottom-six forwards to try and generate some chemistry, putting together a third line of Chris Kelly centering Daniel Paille and Tyler Seguin. Since then, including a 2-0 Game 3 Boston victory over Chicago, three of the four Bruins goals in Games 2 and 3 have come from the new-look third line. Something stuck, and really, it has always made sense–we’ve just never notic