BOSTON (AP) — The Boston Bruins, coming off a season during which they accumulated the third most points in franchise history and won a postseason series for the first time in 10 years, reported for training camp Sunday with hopes of even better production in the 2009-10 season.

The Bruins finished first in the Eastern Conference last season with 116 points and 53 wins, also third most in franchise history. After defeating Montreal in a four-game sweep for their first playoff series win since 1999, they were upset by sixth-seeded Carolina in a seven-game second-round series.

Now the club is back at Square 1 as the new campaign opens.

“We didn’t earn anything just because we had a good year last year,” center Patrice Bergeron said about his team’s mindset at the outset of camp at TD Garden. “We start from scratch this year.”

Most of the returning Bruins from last year’s club admit they thought a lot about last season’s conclusion during the summer. But coming back now, they’re finding it somewhat easy to turn the page.

“I think summer’s long enough to kind of put it behind you and move on,” said defenseman Andrew Ference, who previously played for Pittsburgh and Calgary. “I know it was definitely a lot harder when we lost the finals with Calgary (in seven games in 2004), coming back from something like that. But the second round, it’s disappointing because we should’ve done better.”

The main characters are the same for this Bruins club, built around defenseman Zdeno Chara, goaltender Tim Thomas and center Marc Savard. While winger Phil Kessel is still a holdout as an unsigned restricted free agent and defenseman Aaron Ward and forward P.J. Axelsson are gone, veterans Derek Morris and Steve Begin have been imported to help the Bruins maintain their depth. There also are a number of prospects with shots at making the team, including former first-round pick Zach Hamill.

Second-year winger Blake Wheeler spoke for many of his teammates when explaining his excitement about the Bruins redeeming themselves after coming up short last spring.

“I think that’s the beauty of it: If things don’t work out at the end, you always have this year to focus on,” Wheeler said. “We have 82 games plus, hopefully, playoffs to prove what we’re all made of, and that starts right now.”

Copy the Story Link