00:00joining us from winnipeg this morning it is judd surratt i'm uh is it colder than here there well
00:06curtis current temperature here in boston we like uh real feel 15 20 something like that
00:11hold on i have to put my finger outside it is feels like 15 here okay what do we got judd
00:17up there this one i think you're i think if you stuck your finger out the window here it would
00:21break off well this team is on a bit of a roll here that's uh three in a row we had jeremy
00:29swayman on the show yesterday and uh minus uh a couple superstars they have somehow uh done pretty
00:38well here in uh in this stretch without both of those guys and that's what we talked about last
00:44week greg i think you had talked about the injuries can they be an excuse and they just can't um
00:49you know and this year is a little bit different because of the compressed schedule which i know
00:53we've talked about a lot but um injuries are a reality of life around the national hockey league
00:58you have to figure it out the bruins ended up going three and two without david poster knock
01:02they've gone six and five thus far without charlie mcavoy in the lineup and we'll see here later this
01:09morning if mcavoy is going to make his way back into the lineup for the first time since the middle
01:12of november and then marco stern is going to have a decision to make about jack where you uh where you
01:20end up pairing him because you know the tendency i guess is going to be to put him back with big
01:25zaddy but i don't know if that's gonna i don't know if that's gonna happen i don't know that's
01:30a really good question you know do they ease him back in you know this is a guy who lost 20 pounds
01:34because of the uh the facial surgery that he had to have and and yesterday at practice he actually
01:39showed me his teeth um and oh it's it's pretty gory um if you think the conditions in winnipeg are bad
01:46take a look at that listen uh we got you haven't i don't think i don't think it was it had happened
01:52when you were in here but we got a guy on this show who lost the tooth also makes him look very
01:56tough yeah that's really curtis yeah he lost the tooth like full tooth or chip tooth got a fight
02:03with the southey moms group yeah i said i'm the treasurer now bitches it got physical was it the
02:10right or the left who got you uh right yeah they've always been i'm not too far in the right
02:14judd would you go ahead go ahead wiki no i was gonna say when you look at this game tonight
02:21you've been playing well and you're taking on a team in winnipeg that's you know 500 hockey club
02:27is it is this one of these games where you're supposed to come away i know it's hard to win
02:31in any sport and it's hard to win in hockey but is this one of these games that you're
02:34you're expected to come away with a win it's a really good question you know i i think we had
02:40talked like late last week you know sometimes it's not who you play but when you play them
02:44um you know and you bring up a good point when it comes to the jets and the way that they're playing
02:48um but sometimes and this is something that brick has talked about in the past sometimes if you're a
02:53team you get so sick of losing that you will just not allow it to happen again and that could be the
03:00jets team um this is a team with some really talented players that finished near the top of the league
03:05standings uh last year yeah they're missing nick ehlers um but shifley connor i know hellebuck's out of
03:12the lineup you know so that'll certainly help the bruins um he's not supposed to be back into the
03:17lineup until next week last year's vesnan hart trophy winner but you might be catching the jets
03:23at a good time um it's going to be hard i i think one of the things that that has really helped the
03:29bruins is they played a direct game they've played a patient game they've played a structured game and
03:36that's part of the reason that they've been able to survive some of the injuries and put together
03:40the record they have here over the last six weeks they still have they stopped the bleeding a little
03:46bit on goals in the first period but that game tuesday night completely from my my vantage point
03:52completely different team first period to second period i would agree with you it probably took the
04:00bruins about 15 minutes to get itself going and credit to the blues they came out ready to play
04:04uh and that's a team that's trying to get itself back into the playoff hunt i don't know if you'd
04:08ask jeremy swayman but right off the hop maybe 10 to 15 seconds in he's got to stop a great a chance
04:14he made some great saves early in that game to keep it at one nothing in favor of the blues
04:20before the bruins started to get to their game grind um and you saw goals from from the bottom six
04:27two from fraser mitten two from mark kastelik and an empty netter from pavel zaka so that's listen
04:34you're going to need that you're not always going to be able to start on time it's one of the
04:37advantages if you're able to do it you know i i'd have to take a look at the numbers today
04:42so the bruins as a team if they take a lead after the first period it's only happened five times but
04:49they're a perfect five and oh if they're able to get off to a good start it usually means two points
04:54is on the way judd people were really down on this team going into the season and in the beginning and
04:59you bring up the injuries with mcavoy and pasta people were not uh sure how this team would respond
05:04you talk about that record how much credit you have to give to marco sturm for the way in which
05:09these guys have stepped up and played i think you have to give a lot of credit to him you know
05:14obviously you have to spread it out on the players it's a completely different feeling i think around
05:18the bruins than it was last year where it was essentially chaos from the start of the season
05:23before training camp began to where it was last season so you will kind of leave that last year
05:30but this year it's a completely different feel i think marco uh has done an excellent job uh but
05:36along with the group i i think that there's a better sense of chemistry a better sense of camaraderie
05:42and one of the things that mcavoy talked about yesterday you know if you look at all the successful
05:47teams around the national hockey league the teams that go far are the teams that are close
05:52and this team has a much better connection than it did last year
05:55um uh jeremy swan talked a little bit about that yesterday just talked about these guys really
06:01it's kind of similar if you take him at his word similar to the patriots and what mike vrabel's done
06:07where you got guys that really everybody likes each other they're playing for each other and i i guess
06:12what you're saying is you uh in your role you end up seeing that or experiencing it i haven't you know
06:20part of the conversation uh yesterday with charlie mcavoy was his pairing with uh nikita zadorov
06:24so last year the bruins tried it and it didn't work um and marco stern had mentioned it this was
06:30maybe about a month or two ago that he felt his team took off now obviously this was when mcavoy
06:35was healthy when those two guys were put together and i think there were a lot of people who had maybe
06:41told him prior to that i don't think this is going to work and he said i'm giving it a try and he said
06:46this definitely works and the team started to take off uh and part of the reason i think mcavoy said
06:52their success was they had a greater chance to get to know one another um zadorov comes in last year
06:58on the big free agent ticket you know obviously charlie mcavoy gets hurt later in the season
07:02but he said we spent a lot of time during the summer trying to develop that relationship
07:06i wanted to try and get to know him and he said a lot of the success that they've had this year he
07:12said it reminds me of when i was playing with zdeno chara because chara would say before a game he said
07:17you know what i don't care if we touch the puck tonight we are shutting down their top line
07:21tonight and it's going to be fantastic and he said a lot of that attitude has come back
07:26when he and zadorov have played together this year speaking of chara if philip rivers is successful
07:33how long until he is back uh in in this lineup well you won't have to worry about conditioning with
07:39big z right no question about yeah it runs marathons i mean i don't you think you could step out
07:44there no bad huh i don't think so i mean it's been four years maybe not 25 minutes but you know
07:50maybe you get seven or eight good ones out of them i don't know and at the end of his career we were
07:54like all right chara i mean other than retrieving pucks from out of the net what is he doing just
07:58scored on him yeah that was yeah jud when you look at this team what are you seeing and what do you
08:04like from the guys that are not named david pasanac or morgan geeky oh my i mean you know how many
08:10guys you want to go through um you know you've gotten great rookie performances here from fraserman
08:17uh oh yeah you lose him alex steves has six under the radar uh eight goals and 22 points um you
08:26know elias linholm a guy that we had talked about i think greg you had asked okay who on the bruins
08:30needs to step up with uh david poster knock out of the lineup elias linholm he's got 18 points in
08:3621 games he continues to pile up the assists so there are a lot of guys um you know and i think
08:43a lot of credit also has to go to some of the grinders whether that's the bottom six or the
08:48bottom pair defensemen those guys have really pitched in and provided valuable components i was
08:54listening to morgan geeky the other day with the spitting chiclets guys and he said i would not want
08:58to be an opponent when some of these guys step on the ice for us like tanner juneau and mark
09:03castleic and sean corrali the way that they're able to grind teams down in a lot of ways the
09:09bruins are a little bit of a throwback and i also think what wiggy if you want want to compare it to
09:15a ground and pound running game that some of the teams in the nfl can do they start to soften up
09:20teams early in games and then finish them off late judd it is always a pleasure we will talk to
09:26you again next week and enjoy it up in uh up in canada i will you guys were so fired up i think
09:32you melted some of the snow outside before i came on all right thank you judd surat the play-by-play
09:38voice of the boston ruins on this show every thursday bruins thursday reminder uh we are going to get
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