Chuck Kobasew

By Fluto Shinzawa, Globe Staff ST. PAUL -- Good morning from the Xcel Energy Center, where Rounds 2-7 will take place today. The Bruins have the 10th pick of the second round, courtesy of the Chuck Kobasew trade with Minnesota. They also have No. 81 (via Phoenix in the Derek Morris trade), No. 121, No. 151, and No. 181. The Bruins will most likely draft a goalie today. They are short on netminding depth. @GlobeFluto

Final: Boston College 4, Maine 1 Top-ranked Boston College became the first Hockey East team to captured three consecutive tournament titles -- and a record 11 overall -- in Saturday night's 4-1 victory over 10th-ranked Maine in the tourney final before a TD Garden crowd of 13,709. BC freshman Johnny Gaudreau, who captured the Beanpot MVP here in February, helped the Eagles (29-10-1) take a 2-0 lead after potting a pair of first-period goals at 5:24 and at 7:31 on the power play.

By Fluto Shinzawa, Globe Staff Michael Ryder signed a two-year, $7 million contract with Dallas, highlighting the movement of players with Boston ties around the NHL today. Here's what happened with other ex-Bruins, with help from TSN: Chuck Kobasew, Colorado (two years, $2.5 million) Marco Sturm, Vancouver (one year, $2.25 million) Alex Auld, Ottawa (one year, $1 million) Marty Reasoner, Islanders (two years, $2.7 million) Sean O'Donnell, Chicago (one year, $850,000)

Chris Clark has been a professional hockey player for 13 years. In 1998, when Clark turned pro, fellow Bruins camper Alexander Khokhlachev had just turned five years old. As such, training camp is nothing new for the 35-year-old Clark. Except that this year, for the first time in his career, the native of South Windsor, Conn., is entering camp without the safety net of a contract. "I still go about camp the same way I always do, trying to get ready for the season," Clark said.

Final: Boston College 4, Maine 1 Top-ranked Boston College became the first Hockey East team to captured three consecutive tournament titles -- and a record 11 overall -- in Saturday night's 4-1 victory over 10th-ranked Maine in the tourney final before a TD Garden crowd of 13,709. BC freshman Johnny Gaudreau, who captured the Beanpot MVP here in February, helped the Eagles (29-10-1) take a 2-0 lead after potting a pair of first-period goals at 5:24 and at 7:31 on the power play.

WILMINGTON - Last year, Patrice Bergeron simply ran out of time. The center shook off his career-threatening concussion and was, physically and mentally, on the cusp of reacquainting himself with playoff hockey. Had the Bruins won one more game against the Canadiens and advanced to the second round, then Bergeron, who played against the Canadiens in the 2003-04 playoffs as a rookie, might have gotten a chance to return to the lineup. But when the Bruins dropped a 5-1 match in Game 7 at the Bell Centre and saw their run come to a close, Bergeron saw his window of playoff hockey slam...

A split second before the Colorado Avalanche scored the winning goal last night, Tim Thomas tracked forward Milan Hejduk handling the puck in the left corner. Thomas shifted from left to right across his crease and tried to get himself square to the shot -- he correctly anticipated that Hejduk would feed defenseman Brett Clark for a one-timer -- that was sure to come from the point. But Thomas ran into a problem. Forward Brett McLean, who was causing havoc in front of the net, bumped Thomas's right leg, keeping the goalie from getting a good look at Clark's third-period one-timer.

DALLAS - Upon perusal of the record book, there is little in terms of humiliation that can match last year's season-opening 8-3 stinker against Florida. That was one of the few encouraging points for the Bruins last night. Before a sellout crowd of 18,532 at the American Airlines Center, the Bruins dropped a disappointing 4-1 decision to the Stars, who took advantage of critical defensive breakdowns and some so-so goaltending by Manny Fernandez, who made his debut in a black-and-gold sweater.

The good start, the two-goal lead, the momentum of the TD Banknorth Garden home crowd - all gone in the second period when the Bruins got off their game. "We did stop," said Aaron Ward. "That's what got us in trouble in the second period. We stopped playing our system with the effort and level of intensity. We sat and watched them play a perimeter game, run us around, and when a team does that in the playoffs, it's hard to push back. " With the score tied, 2-2, in the third period, the Bruins got the break they needed when defenseman Josh Gorges was nailed for cross-checking.

Early in last night's third period, with the score tied at 1-1, Henrik Zetterberg, Detroit's No. 1 center, sprinted into the Boston zone and winged a fast-moving shot on Tim Thomas that the goalie steered aside. Upon reflection, the Boston netminder thought he could have done a better job of putting the puck out of danger. "It was a little bit behind a screen," Thomas said of Zetterberg's shot. "But having said that, I should have found some way to put the rebound in a better spot.

By Fluto Shinzawa, Globe Staff Michael Ryder signed a two-year, $7 million contract with Dallas, highlighting the movement of players with Boston ties around the NHL today. Here's what happened with other ex-Bruins, with help from TSN: Chuck Kobasew, Colorado (two years, $2.5 million) Marco Sturm, Vancouver (one year, $2.25 million) Alex Auld, Ottawa (one year, $1 million) Marty Reasoner, Islanders (two years, $2.7 million) Sean O'Donnell, Chicago (one year, $850,000)

By Fluto Shinzawa, Globe Staff ST. PAUL -- Good morning from the Xcel Energy Center, where Rounds 2-7 will take place today. The Bruins have the 10th pick of the second round, courtesy of the Chuck Kobasew trade with Minnesota. They also have No. 81 (via Phoenix in the Derek Morris trade), No. 121, No. 151, and No. 181. The Bruins will most likely draft a goalie today. They are short on netminding depth. @GlobeFluto

WILMINGTON - It could very well be that by today’s end, the Bruins will have fallen out of the Eastern Conference’s top eight. The Senators enter TD Garden riding a five-game winning streak, including a 5-1 road victory Monday over the Bruins. The Flyers (53 points), a point behind the Bruins and Islanders in ninth place, host the Hurricanes, the league’s worst team. The Islanders play New Jersey at Nassau Coliseum. All of that is just white noise to Claude Julien. “We’ve got to give those guys credit,’’ the Bruins coach said of...

ST. PAUL - The Wild have never been a kind opponent for the Bruins. Entering last night, the Bruins were 1-8-0 against the Wild since the franchise was introduced to the NHL in 2000-01. By employing former coach Jacques Lemaire’s neutral-zone trap, the Wild had seemingly always stifled the Bruins and prevented them from getting good looks on their netminders. Lemaire, former general manager Doug Risebrough, and the dreaded trap, fixtures in Minnesota from the team’s inception, are gone.

Speedy free agent Phil Kessel has made it clear that he doesn’t intend to negotiate any longer with the Bruins, his Toronto-based agent informing the Boston front office in recent days that the right winger’s priority is to sign an offer sheet with one of the 29 other teams. All of which doesn’t necessarily mean that Kessel’s days in the Hub are finished. The Bruins still reserve the right to match any offer sheet Kessel signs, and if they match, they are prohibited from trading him only for the first year of his new deal.

RALEIGH, N.C. - This is not the way the Bruins would have written up the game plan. Last night, after swiping a 2-0 lead, they reverted to their Game 4 habits, turning pucks over in the neutral zone and giving up scoring chances. In the third period, ahead by a 4-1 score, they saw old friend Sergei Samsonov trim the advantage to two goals. Then they gave the hard-charging Hurricanes a pair of power plays. But for a team that lost three straight games and put itself in a 3-1 series hole, perhaps the script was a fitting one to follow to bring the Hurricanes to the edge.

MONTREAL - As the 2007-08 Bruins filed out of the visitors' dressing room at the Bell Centre for one final time last night, they emerged with clean cheeks and chins, their battered faces clipped clear of the traditional whiskers that playoff competitors grow. The Bruins' captivating, hard-hitting, longer-than-expected season had come to an end. To a man, they noted how proud they were of each other. They were a bruised and underestimated bunch that went toe-to-toe with the top-seeded Canadiens, a run-and-gun, teeming-with-skill club that had claimed 10 consecutive meetings (eight in the regular season, two in the...

The Bruins gave the fans exactly what they deserved. The resurgent hockey fandom had invested too much in this Bruins team to have the season end in shame. And losing four straight to the Carolina Hurricanes would have been totally shameful. But it's not over yet. The Bruins made sure of that last night by delivering a powerful we-ain't-dead-yet message, blowing out the Canes by a 4-0 score in a game they dominated from the first drop of the puck. Now it's 3-2, and the Bruins are feeling far better about themselves.