WILMINGTON - The play looked harmless enough.
On Feb. 22, halfway through the second period of a Bruins-Lightning game, Tampa Bay defenseman Josef Melichar flung a pass into the slot from the left wall. Dennis Wideman was fronting forward Matt Pettinger. Zdeno Chara was supporting Wideman and manning the front of the net.
Seemingly out of nowhere, an unmarked stick poked out, got a piece of Melichar's pass, and redirected it past Bruins goalie Manny Fernandez.
"Right in front of the net, poom," Chara recalled. "He just tipped it."
Mark Recchi had struck again. Recchi had slipped around Chara - he gives up 11 inches and 60 pounds to the Boston captain - spotted a seam in the defense, and planted his Bauer just right to tip Melichar's pass.
When asked about the play, Wideman couldn't remember it, but acknowledged it must have been a signature Recchi goal.
"Sounds like something he would do," said Wideman.
The plan: Marco Sturm, one of three rotating alternate captains (P.J. Axelsson and Andrew Ference being the others, with Patrice Bergeron always wearing the "A"), would be one of the Bruins' top two left wings. With his speed and grit, Sturm could be a go-to scorer, a lefthanded shot on the top power-play unit, and possibly approach the 40-goal mark, as te am vice president Cam Neely predicted before the season.
The reality: Sturm, after tearing the meniscus and anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee Dec. 18, would be lost for the season.
The Bruins had some insurance because Blake Wheeler had made the roster out of training camp and given his club a scoring threat on the left wing. For a good stretch, Milan Lucic teamed with Marc Savard and Phil Kessel on the No. 1 line to provide room-clearing muscle for his skilled linemates.
But as the trade deadline approached, general manager Peter Chiarelli made it clear he wanted a lefthanded scoring threat who could energize the power play. For all his versatility, Axelsson wasn't the desired offensive presence as the net-front lefty on the top power-play unit.
So at the deadline, Chiarelli plucked the 41-year-old Recchi off the Lightning roster (he also swiped a 2010 second-round pick) for Matt Lashoff and Martins Karsums, two youngsters who had been surpassed on the organizational depth chart. Despite his age, Recchi had a pedigree of scoring. Recchi wasn't afraid to drive to the net and set up shop in the danger areas. The legs were still fresh enough for him to keep up. And perhaps most important, Recchi owned a pair of Stanley Cup rings (1991 with Pittsburgh, 2006 with Carolina), giving him instant credibility with his new teammates.
