Chris Kelly celebrating the biggest personal achievement of his career: his OT winner in game one the 2012 NHL playoffs
The Boston Bruins as a team have played 5 preseason games and are a cumulative 4-1, their only blemish amidst so much foretelling success being an 8-2 beat down last Thursday at the hands of the Redwings.
Jarome Iginla has made his transition to the spoked be seems like it never happened and Milan Lucic has already made the dentist far to familiar with Looch's opponents. Malcom Subban has bee great and seems much closer to being NHL ready than many had previously assumed.
For the first time in over 2 seasons, preseason hockey has returned to the NHL schedule and for the Bruins, a host of off season signings left many questions unanswered. With situations like Jarome Iginla an the chemistry surrounding him and his new line-mates, the preseason has ANSWERED questions. But in the cases of Malcom Subban and the combination of Chris Kelly and Carl Soderberg is has only spawned them.
Chris Kelly, a 32 year old versatile Bruins forward has been with the team for 3 seasons now an despite his 6 years in Ottowa has broken into the minds of hockey fans as a Bruin not a Senator. He was traded to Boston in the final months of their 2010-2011 regular season before making a strong impression as the teams 3rd line center in the playoffs. There he scored 5 times and saw his team storm all the way to a cup championship. Kelly got off to a good start in Beantown but sported an even better sophomore campaign in 2011-2012. He scored 20 times that year and did not miss a game. Kelly seemed to be the big name answer to a Bruins 3rd line that had struggled for so many years but as quick as the praise began to come forth, he bottomed out.
Chris scored just 3 times in the lockout shortened 2013 season and was a complete non factor in the ensuing playoffs scoring just two goals, both of which came after Kelly failed to score in the initial 3 rounds of the NHL tournament. The Bruins were back to rock bottom. They shipped Tyler Seguin out of town and seemed to be looking to do the same with Kelly. But as time went on, no moves were made so Bruins fans finally looked to fix the problem at hand not simply throw it away.
Chris Kelly is great but the Bruins need someone for him to feed off of. Fact is, that person was already in the Bruins organisation and had already played briefly with Kelly. That persons name is Carl Soderberg.
After he was drafted by the Blues back in 2004, Malmo Sweeden native: Carl Soderberg returned to his homeland lacking what he so dearly yearned for: an NHL contract. As it stood, the Blues wanted Soderberg but not enough to pay him. Turns out, while the Bruins like the Blues did not want to lock him up for a contract, they were willing to give up some decent assets to simply call dibs on Carl. In July of 2007 they traded backup: Hannu Toivonen for the rights to the Sweed.
But nevertheless, the Bruins sent Soderberg back to Sweeden where he would play 5 more seasons as he would progressively increase his scoring output all before he finally complied 31 goals in this past season leading his team to the playoffs all before he gained the elusive call by the Boston Bruins. Soderberg was comming to Boston.
"You know, Kells and Carl are really good players, they work well together and so I'm just trying to help out when I can and if I can give them a little bit more space, then that's all the better." 3rd line companion Riley Smith said of his teammates.
Soderberg has sported an improved style of play in this preseason accounting for 2 goals and quite a few nice burst of speed and confert in and around these US rinks that are almost 10 feet thinner than those in Sweeden. As for Chris Kelly, his work in the preseason has accounted for 2 goals of his own as well as an assist on one of Soderberg's 2 preseason goals. The combination of Carl Soderberg seems to be the compliment that Chris Kelly has needed all this time.
0 comments:
Post a Comment