BOSTON \u2013\u2013 When Nikita Zadorov signed with the Boston Bruins, he had playoffs on his mind.<\/p>\n
After missing the cut last year, the defenseman will skate in his first postseason in the Black & Gold come Sunday\u2019s Game-1 meeting with the Buffalo Sabres at KeyBank Center. Zadorov, who was a first-round pick for the Sabres in 2013, returns looking for four wins against his former club.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was the goal coming in here: play those meaningful games. We\u2019re not done yet. Obviously, it\u2019s an exciting time right now, for sure,\u201d Zadorov said. \u201cNow playing in the first playoff series against them in Buffalo \u2013 I only have good things to say about the city and the people who gave me a chance to play in this league. It is going to be a pretty cool experience.\u201d\u200b<\/p>\n
Zadorov\u2019s punishing style is something he wants to lean into during the first-round series, with discipline, of course, he said. The 6-foot-7, 255-pound blueliner is third on the Bruins with 196 total hits this season. Zadorov and his teammates are embracing the challenge of starting on the road.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that place is going to be nuts,\u201d he said. \u201cI think if you don\u2019t enjoy it, you\u2019re in the wrong sport or wrong place. That is playoff hockey, that\u2019s pressure, that\u2019s atmosphere, that\u2019s intensity, physicality, blood, sweat, you name it. Everything is enjoyable.\u201d<\/p>\n
Head coach Marco Sturm will rely on his grinding players to help set the tone for the B\u2019s.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll of our big guys, starting with [Zadorov] on the backend, and then having Jeannot, Kasty and just guys being very physical and nasty. Without taking any penalties, that is going to be huge,\u201d Sturm said. \u201cI think that could be a game-changer, that could be a series-changer, that could be a lot of things. We just have to be smart about it. Because I know a lot of teams, they\u2019re afraid of us.\u201d\u200b<\/p>\n
Zadorov, who is going into the playoffs for the sixth time in his NHL career, will be a leader in the locker room, too, for those entering their first postseasons. One of those players is James Hagens. The 19-year-old forward signed his entry-level contract on April 8 and skated in the final two games of the regular season. The B\u2019s have tried to keep things light for the new kid.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BOSTON \u2013\u2013 When Nikita Zadorov signed with the Boston Bruins, he had playoffs on his mind. After missing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":554700,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5100],"tags":[1107,229,5133,5,4,1108],"class_list":{"0":"post-554699","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-buffalo-sabres","8":"tag-buffalo","9":"tag-buffalo-sabres","10":"tag-buffalosabres","11":"tag-hockey","12":"tag-nhl","13":"tag-sabres"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116421427444488041","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554699","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=554699"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554699\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/554700"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=554699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=554699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=554699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}