BOSTON (AP) — The Boston Bruins are going into the season with high expectations for the first time in a long time, and coach Claude Julien is telling his team to be ready.

“I think we’ve got to work our way to the top just like we did last year,” Julien said at the team’s media day on Monday. “There’s nothing different except the challenge will be bigger, there’s more respect toward our team this year.”

After finishing atop the Eastern Conference last season, the Bruins won a playoff series for the first time in 10 years but then lost in a seven-game, second-round series to the Carolina Hurricanes. A two-time participant in the Stanley Cup finals during his Hall of Fame playing career, Bruins executive Cam Neely knows what it takes for the club to go further.

“What I always have these guys try to remember is how it felt to win those games and how it felt to lose that final game. And you can learn from that,” Neely said. “I think we have a lot of guys that know we should’ve gone a little deeper than we did and I think they’re hungry to get back to that challenge to go a little deeper.”

Boston will open the season on Thursday night against the Washington Capitols with much of the same roster from last year. The Bruins added free agent defensemen Derek Morris and forward Steve Begin, and they promoted goaltender Tuukka Rask and defenseman Johnny Boychuk. One notable departure was leading goal-scorer Phil Kessel, who scored a team-leading 36 goals last season.

Marco Sturm is healthy after missing most of last season, and David Krejci is ahead of schedule after postseason hip surgery.

“We’re confident with the team that we have here,” Julien said. “As a group, there’s no doubt we’re a strong team, we feel stronger as well with some young guys having matured We’re hopefully looking forward to seeing him in the opener. So I think all and all, our team is in great shape.”

And if they don’t achieve the lofty goals they’ve set, the disappointment will be felt all the way to the top.

“There’s an expectation on my part and I think the community at large. I share the same goal. My ambition is to win a Stanley Cup,” Bruins owner Jeremy Jacobs said. “I think we have the personalities in place, from management, coaching and players. So I look for a great season and I’ll be disappointed with anything less than that.”

Notes: The Bruins announced that the team will honor television play-by-play broadcaster Fred Cusick during the Oct. 3 home game against Carolina. The TV broadcast booth will be named the Fred Cusick Broadcast Booth and a silver microphone encased in a black-and-gold frame will be installed on the facade of the TD Garden’s ninth level beneath the booth. Krejci (hip), Sturm (groin) and Begin (groin) are all listed as day-to-day and are probable to play in Thursday night’s opener. More than 200,000 homes in New England stand to miss the season-opener on television because of the dispute between Versus and DirectTV. A disappointed Jeremy Jacobs said that the issue is out of the league’s control and added, “I think the best thing is, everybody should be put on notice of what the circumstances are. And if they want to watch our game get to a place they can see it from.”

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