ANAHEIM \u2013\u2013 The Boston Bruins\u2019 defensemen have scored five times through the opening seven games of the season.<\/p>\n
They enter Friday\u2019s matchup against the Anaheim Ducks at Honda Center on a three-game goal streak. This production is not by chance; it is the result of a year under head coach Marco Sturm\u2019s defensive system. He wants his blueliners involved.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve talked about it. Looking at our d-corps, I think we have guys that like to get up and are good skaters,\u201d Hampus Lindholm said following the B\u2019s practice on Thursday in Anaheim. \u201cAny time we can help the forwards kind of get up there, but do it smart, we found that right mixture of when to jump up. Not always lead the rush, but maybe be the fourth guy up the rush. We have the players for it, and we just have to keep doing it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lindholm has four points (one goal, three assists) so far this year, trailing only Mason Lohrei, who has five points (two goals, three assists), for the positional lead. Lindholm started the season on the first pair with Will Borgen, but is now skating with Charlie McAvoy, who returned from a six-game suspension in Tuesday\u2019s win against the San Jose Sharks.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we both know what we do when we\u2019re successful. I think it starts out with each other; if [McAvoy] plays his best game and I play my best game, I think we are going to do some good stuff together out there. I think that\u2019s our mindset going out,\u201d Lindholm said. \u201cWe don\u2019t really have to think when we play together out there. We kind of just roll and play each other\u2019s games.\u201d<\/p>\n
McAvoy had a tally in his first game back in the lineup and logged a team-high 24:41 of ice time. It took only a few shifts for the alternate captain to settle in, find his legs, and showcase the defensively responsible but offensively opportunistic style of play Sturm expects from his defensemen. It was an emphasis during Thursday\u2019s practice, too.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe always try to have a drill in there, too, where we are going to activate the D automatically. I think it was just a piece that was a little bit missing in the past, and we try to stay on our D,\u201d Sturm said. \u201cWe have eight D, so they should be all rested all the time. We just want to make sure it\u2019s automatic, especially the first few steps.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ANAHEIM \u2013\u2013 The Boston Bruins\u2019 defensemen have scored five times through the opening seven games of the season.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":497714,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164],"class_list":["post-497713","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anaheim","tag-anaheim","tag-anaheim-headlines","tag-anaheim-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497713","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=497713"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497713\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/497714"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=497713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=497713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=497713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}