Practice Update 3/1: B’s Hold Optional Skate

WILMINGTON, MA - Only nine Bruins hit the ice for practice today at Ristuccia Arena in Wilmington, following the B’s 2-1 overtime win over the Ottawa Senators last night.

The nine B’s included goaltender Anton Khudobin and defensemen Dougie Hamilton and Aaron Johnson, along with forwards Dan Paille, Shawn Thornton, Gregory Campbell and Lane MacDermid in merlot, and Jay Pandolfo and Chris Bourque in grey.

The short skate saw assistant coaches Doug Houda and Doug Jarvis run the B’s through basic shooting drills and rushes to get their legs moving.

All other Bruins took part in a variety of off-ice video and maintenance, and Coach talked about the decision to make it an optional today.

“There’s sometimes when guys will stay off the ice and do what we call a flush bike ride. They’ll get on a bike and peddle just to get the lactic acid out from the build up. We do a little bit of a stretch and that kind of stuff,” said Coach, on how they utilize recovery and preparation days. “There’s other times where we just leave the guys alone.

“We did some video work this morning, guys did a little bit of maintenance work, whether it was with the trainers or whether it was in the gym.”

Coach said the maintenance day wasn’t really a product of last night’s win, in which the B’s didn’t have their legs under them despite pulling out the win.

“At the same time a lot of that stuff is planned,” he said on the day’s approach. “Three games in four nights. It’s important to get those guys a break.”

“A lot of times after games, we make those decisions, we’ll sit down with the coaching staff and make a plan for the next day.”

Goaltending Moving Forward

“We’re going to utilize both goaltenders,” Coach said, on using both Tuukka Rask and Anton Khudobin during the upcoming three games in four days stretch - against Tampa Bay on Saturday and Montreal Sunday night at TD Garden, before a road game in D.C. against the Caps on Tuesday.

“Tuukka right now is playing extremely well, we’ve been pleased with that, but we know that it’s impossible to ride Tuukka through this whole thing. We need both of them.”

-Caryn Switaj ^CS