Recchi eager for Original Six matchup

The Montreal Canadiens versus the Boston Bruins . . . if you’re a hockey fan, it does get the motor running, doesn’t it?
So you can imagine what it does to a player.
It was early Sunday afternoon and there was boredom in Mark Recchi’s voice.
Of course, the veteran NHL forward was preparing for the Boston Bruins’ final regular-season game, against the (seemingly always) struggling New York Islanders.
Recchi and the Bruins anxiously awaited the completion of that game — they would win it, 6-2 — so that they, the top-seeded team in the NHL’s Eastern Conference, could begin contemplating a first-round matchup with the No. 8 Canadiens.
That series will open Thursday in Boston.
“You know what . . . it’s tough,” Recchi said of trying to prepare to play the Islanders. “Especially with playoffs around the corner. You just want to get it started.”
And that’s about where the boredom left Recchi’s voice, replaced with the enthusiasm that comes with playoff hockey.
“It’s a great rivalry so it’s going to be good,” he said of Bruins versus Canadiens which is bigger, yes, than Alien vs. Predator. “They’re playing a lot better now. It’ll be tough. With the emotions and everything . . . it’ll be good for the league, I’ll tell you that.”
Recchi, the Kamloops native who owns a piece of his hometown Blazers, turned 41 in February. He has been a professional since 1988. Even at his age and with his experience, the Original Six matchup has him fired up. Yes, he still gets butterflies.
“Oh yeah . . . that’s awesome,” he said. “It’s neat. Especially when you have the rivarly like this.”
The Bruins and Habs whetted the sport’s appetite for this matchup last week when they played some oldtime hockey in the TD Banknorth Garden. The Bruins won 5-4 — on Recchi’s overtime goal — but not before the Bruins lost their cool and a 3-1 lead.
The Bruins, Recchi said, are going to have to have better control of their emotions as the first round evolves.
“We’re deep and we’re balanced,” he said of the Bruins who, over the 82-game regular season, had the NHL’s best defence and third-best offence. “We’re big and physical and we have to play that way but be smart.”
He said the Bruins have to play with what he called “controlled emotions.”
At the same time, he added, “We have to get pucks deep and we have to play physical and we have to get pucks on their net. We have to get behind their defence and forecheck.”
It is absolutely imperative that the Bruins get the puck deep in the Montreal zone and not turn it over in the neutral zone.
“We have to make them come 200 feet,” Recchi explained. “If you start turning pucks over on them, they have good enough players that they can turn that in your face and that doesn’t benefit us at all.”
This will be the 32nd time the Canadiens and Bruins have met in a playoff round. The Habs have won 24 of those series, including the last three (2008, 2004, 2002).
This season, the Canadiens were 1-3-2 against the Bruins. Put another way, thanks to overtime and shootouts, the Bruins were 5-0-1 against the Habs.
Recchi said the Bruins are especially aware of Alexei Kovalev, Montreal’s enigmatic sniper, and linemates Saku Koivu and Alex Tanguay.
“That line was going real good,” Recchi said. “They basically got their team hot at the right time.”
Recchi, of course, played for the Canadiens, spending four seasons (1995-99) there. So he knows all about the pressures involved in wearing le bleu, blanc et rouge.
But there are pressures in Boston, too, and that is exacerbated right now because the Bruins are a first-place team. Just one year ago, the roles were reversed — the Canadiens were the conference’s top seed and they took out the eighth-seeded Bruins in the first round.
Recchi is hoping that his presence will help guarantee that doesn’t happen again. The Bruins, looking for some depth and veteran leadership, acquired him from the Tampa Bay Lightning at the March 4 trade deadline.
It’s safe to say the Bruins, to this point, have gotten at least that from him. In 18 games with the Beantowners, Recchi, a master at driving to the net with his stickblade on the ice, totaled 16 points, including 10 goals.
By the way, all Recchi, a two-time Stanley Cup winner, did this season was solidify his status as a sure-fire Hall of Famer, should he ever decide to retire. He has 1,442 career regular-season points, which is 14th on the NHL’s career list. He ranks 14th in games played (1,490), 26th in goals (545, one more than a guy named Maurice Richard) and 18th in points (897).
But that kind of talk is for this summer or, more likely, the summer of 2010.
For now, there are playoff games to be played.
“I feel great. I feel real good . . . for this time of year,” Recchi said.
He gives credit for his good health to Tampa Bay head coach Rick Tocchet, who “was really good to me.”
Tocchet made sure Recchi got ample rest and wasn’t on the ice every day.
“He would let me get my workouts in . . . instead of going on the ice some days he knew I would like to go in the gym and get my workouts and stuff done in there,” Recchi explained. “And on certain days he said just take it off. That was good.”
The same thing has happened in Boston where head coach Claude Julien appears to know exactly what he has in Recchi.
In one conversation, Julien hesitatingly told Recchi: “Nothing against you but you’re at the point with your age . . .”
A laughing Recchi said he responded with: “Don’t worry. I’m not offended. I’m not offended by you saying that.”
With the Bruins, Recchi has found life playing alongside a couple of pups — centre Patrice Bergeron, 23, and right-winger Chuck Kobasew, the Osoyoos native who turns 27 on Friday.
“Bergeron is a good player,” Recchi said, sounding not unlike a proud father. “I can’t belive how strong he is and how good he is defensively. He’s only 23 . . . he is talented. He’s strong, he’s smart. And not a lot of people realize that he plays against every top line.”
Which means Recchi might see a lot of Kovalev, Koivu and Tanguay in the days ahead.
And that suits him just fine.

Gregg Drinnan is sports editor of The Daily News. He is at gdrinnan@kamloopsnews.ca and gdrinnan.blogspot.com.