Bruins coach Claude Julien made the decision to mix up the second and third lines in Monday’s practice, but speaking after the skate, he hardly sounded like a man who had his Game 2 lineup set in stone.

Rich Peverley made the jump to the second line in the practice after playing Game 1 between Tyler Seguin and Michael Ryder. Peverley skated Monday with Brad Marchand and Mark Recchi, while Chris Kelly took his spot on the third line with. Center Patrice Bergeron rotated in with the second line during line drills, centering Marchand and Recchi (his usual trio), as well as Marchand and Peverley.

Julien said he doesn’t know whether he will have Bergeron for Game 2, and that Monday’s lines were put in place to give him more options should he feel a change is in order.

“Just moving guys around a little bit,” Julien said following the practice. “I think it’s important that if we’re going to [mix up lines], that they get used to playing with each other. Kelly has an opportunity to play with that line and has gotten used to them a little bit. Now Peverley [has skated with Recchi and Marchand] and I’ve got some options. Just giving some thought to maybe different combinations if need be, and tomorrow we’ll decide which one we want to go with.”

Mixing up the second and third lines would be nothing new for Julien this series. He moved Seguin up to the second line with Kelly and Marchand in the third period of the team’s Game 1 loss, with Recchi moving down to the third line with Peverley and Ryder.

“I think me and Kells [Chris Kelly] might do some switching off,” Peverley said. “I think it’s just to give an option down the middle there. I’m just going to try and play my game. I’m not going to try and be Bergy. He’s a tremendous player. I’ll just try and use my speed.

“Usually, you try and prepare to play with anybody. And you want to be able to play with anybody. I don’t think it’s going to be any different at all.”

As for what needs to change, Peverley broke out a time-tested but very appropriate hockey cliche.

“We played well but we didn’t play a full 60 minutes,” Peverley said. “Obviously, you make mistakes at this time of year, they end up in the back of your net. Some costly mistakes, a little bit of a lull there and within a minute-25 seconds, we’re down 3-0. We can’t let that happen and we have to be fully prepared.”

He was drafted by the Bruins No. 2 overall in last summer NHL entry draft. He was picked by the Bruins as the face of the franchise moving forward into the next decade.

With the latest concussion to Patrice Bergeron, that moment has arrived faster than anyone could have imagined – or hoped.

But we’re about to find out – ready or not – just what kind of special player 19-year-old Tyler Seguin can be for the Bruins.

“I’m trying to keep as sharp as I can both on and off the ice even though I’m not playing,” Seguin said. “You have to work out pretty hard when you’re not in the lineup and do a lot of hard skates and hard workouts so I feel great.

“It’s been a huge learning curve. My defensive zone has gotten a lot better I think. I also believe on a compete level, my battling skills have gotten better and still improving.”

Veteran Mark Recchi, 24 years older than Seguin, doesn’t think the rookie will be overwhelmed in his first playoff action on the Bruins’ third line with Rich Peverley and Michael Ryder, partly because he’s seen the fire of intense playoff hockey in his recent past.

“His competitive level was huge,” Recchi said. “In juniors, I think he was just so darn good that he could kind of get away with skill. He learned how to compete every night and he learned to be a pro. It was great to see he was willing to learn, he was willing to talk to guys, get better, want to get better and when you have that, you’re going to get better. If you think you’re too good, you’re not going to get better, but he improved tremendously over the course of the season in terms of how hard he competed and it was great to see. This is another level, and he’s ready for it. It will be fun.” Read the rest of this entry »

It looks like Chris Kelly will play on the second line with Patrice Bergeron out. (AP)

WILMINGTON — Bruins center Chris Kelly skated in Patrice Bergeron‘s place on the second line Monday at Ristuccia Arena, centering a line with Brad Marchand and Mark Recchi. Kelly, who has seven points since Game 2 of the Eastern Conference quarterfinals, hopes to find success on the second line, but recognized after Monday’s practice that he can’t simply replace the concussed Bergeron.

“Everything,” Kelly said when asked what the team will miss with Bergeron out. “Obviously you can’t replace Bergy. He does every little thing that maybe goes unnoticed by a lot of people, but not by us. He does all the big things that [everybody] notices, as well. You can’t replace him. He’s irreplaceable, and hopefully he’s good to go.”

Bergeron is expected to miss the beginning of the team’s upcoming series with the Lightning due to a concussion suffered in the third period of Friday’s Game 4 win over the Flyers. As a result, Kelly will be given an increased role with the assistant captain out, but his biggest hope is that Bergeron can return quickly.

“I would love not to play with them,” Kelly said of his new line. “We’ll see what happens and go forward from there.”

After going well over a month without a goal, Milan Lucic had a good night Friday. (AP)

Friday night’s series-clinching win over the Flyers was special for everyone involved with the Bruins, but it was a little extra special for Milan Lucic. The team’s leading goal scorer during the regular season entered the game without a goal in the playoffs. In fact, he hadn’t scored in 20 games going back to the end of the regular season.

That drought finally came to an end when Lucic one-timed home a centering pass from Nathan Horton for a power-play goal 12:02 into the game.

“It was great,” Lucic said when asked how he felt after the goal. “It was a great feeling once I scored that goal just to get that monkey off my back and get that lead.”

Lucic wasn’t done, either. He gave the Bruins a 3-1 lead with 4:57 remaining in the game when he beat Sergei Brobovsky five-hole on a breakaway for his second goal of the night. That was the backbreaker for the Flyers, who had turned up the pressure after the Bruins made it 2-1 earlier in the third.

“That’s what it was all about here. We had to weather that storm,” coach Claude Julien said. “When you are desperate and you need to score to stay in the series, you know they are going to give it their best shot. … We did a great job until we got that third goal, which was a big goal. Certainly it relieved a lot of pressure.”

Lucic admitted that he got frustrated at times during the slump, but he credited his teammates for supporting him and helping him get through it.

“My teammates, especially my linemates with [David] Krejci and Horton, we’ve been able to create so much chemistry here,” Lucic said. “They had my back and they just told me, ‘It’s going to come. Just keep sticking with it.’ I tried my hardest not to get frustrated. There was a time there when I was really frustrated. But right now, obviously it feels good to step up and help the team win a big game.”

Assistant captain Mark Recchi said that sort of team unity is one of the biggest reasons the Bruins are where they are right now.

“That’s what good teams do,” Recchi said. “When you haven’t scored for a while, you tend to get tight. He’s a young kid and hopefully now he’s found a really good time to start getting hot. He’s been a great teammate to everybody else this year. When guys are struggling or they’re fighting to score goals, what good teams do is find ways to help him and take that pressure off of him.”

Mark Recchi

Bruins forward Mark Recchi checked in with the Dennis & Callahan show Wednesday morning, hours before the B’s host the Flyers in Game 3 of the Eastern Conference semifinals. To hear the interview, go to the Dennis & Callahan audio on demand page.

The Bruins have a 2-0 lead as the series moves to Boston. A year ago, the B’s led the Flyers 3-0 in the series before losing in seven games. Recchi said the Bruins have not avoided discussing last year. “We know that. We’ll talk about it. There’s no question we’ll address it,” Recchi said. “We’ll get ready. Our thing is: Hey, focus on what we do. Don’t focus on the big picture, focus on tonight. Focus on what we do as a team. Don’t focus so much on them and what’s going on on the outside, what people are saying, what people are talking about. Get in our bubble and let’s get ready for tonight.”

Flyers coach Peter Laviolette said after Game 2 that the pressure is on the Bruins now because they are expected to win. Recchi isn’t buying it. “The pressure’s on them,” Recchi countered. “They have to come in here and win. We went and did our job. They had home ice. The pressure’s all on them. If they don’t win, they’re down 3-0. They can talk all they want about last year and all that, [but] the pressure completely is on them right now.”

Tim Thomas has stood out in goal for Boston and has drawn comparisons to Dominik Hasek for his unconventional yet successful style of flopping all over the crease. “They found a way to stop pucks,” Recchi said of Hasek and Thomas. “It doesn’t matter how, they found a way. There’s a method to their madness, too. Timmy might look like he’s all over the place, but he really knows what he’s doing in there. He’s really controlled, and actually probably controlled in his mind in how he wants to play.”

At 43 years old, Recchi is in his 22nd NHL season. Asked about his ability to continue to produce as the oldest player in the league, Recchi said: “It’s all how you rest and prepare. I’ve got lots left in the tank. … Once playoffs start, I just basically play right now. I don’t do a whole lot of practicing. I just try and keep myself sharp as much as possible.”

Recchi said he does his best to play through pain. “Regardless of my age, I want to be counted on,” he said. “And I want the coach to know that I’m going to be there. And I want my teammates to know I’m going to be there for them all the time.”

Join DJ Bean, Mike Petraglia, Joey the Fish and others from TD Garden for Game 7 of the Eastern Conference quarterfinals vs. the Canadiens. It’s do or die for the Bruins, and the blog will open at 6:30 p.m..

MONTREAL — Moments after losing Game 6 to the Canadiens, 2-1, on a pair of 5-on-3 goals, Bruins veteran Mark Recchi admitted he and his teammates need to do a better job of cashing in on their power play chances. While the Canadiens scored a pair of two-man advantage goals, the Bruins were 0-for-4 on the power play, making them scoreless in 19 chances during the series.

“We had opportunities but it wasn’t good enough for power play on our end,” Recchi said. “Five-on-five, we were terrific. They got a couple of 5-on-3 goals. We have to be a lot better, obviously. We’re not getting any sustained pressure to top it off. We’re getting one shot and it’s getting blocked half the time. We’re not getting pucks on net and so it’s one-and-out kind of thing. You have to find your way back in [the offensive zone] and then one-and-out again. We have to sustain pressure. Our power play hasn’t been that bad all year and then for right now, it hasn’t been good in this series. We get the opportunity [Wednesday], we have to step up.”

Recchi was on the Bruins last year when the team lost its last Game 7 on home ice to the Flyers, 4-3. He and the Bruins have a chance at redemption with a win on Wednesday. If they beat the Canadiens, they will again draw the Flyers in the Eastern semis starting this weekend in Philadelphia.

“It’s a big one [Wednesday],” Recchi said. “We’ll go get some rest and be ready. If we play like that 5-on-5 and if we get opportunities on the power play [in Game 7], we have to be a lot better than that.”

Recchi actually has the chance to do something about it on the ice. Claude Julien can only watch from behind the bench as the team continues to look totally out of kilter.

“Well, let’s put it this way, our power play is struggling,” Julien said. “I think we’ve talked about that every day so far. They scored two goals five-on-three. Five-on-four they weren’t a threat and neither were we. Five-on-five I thought we were obviously a team that held most of the control if the game and that’s what we have to do. We have to stay disciplined, stay away from the penalty box like we talked about at the beginning of the series.

“But I would have liked to have a five-on-three, maybe our power play would have scored as well. But it wasn’t the case and again, it’s one of those games where we tried, we worked hard, we had our chances and we weren’t able to bury them. But certainly not down or disappointed in our game except for the fact those five-on-threes ended up costing us the game.”

Now, it’s Game 7 – the ultimate test in hockey that the Bruins haven’t won since beating Montreal’s Patrick Roy and his case of appendicitis in 1994 at the old Boston Garden. They have lost their last four attempts, including home games in 2010 vs. the Flyers and 2009 vs. the Hurricanes.

“Just focus on getting ready,” Recchi said. “You’ve gotta relax and you’ve got to get ready to play a one-game series now. We worked all year to get home ice and we’re going home and we’ll go get a lot of rest, and focus on what we have to do, make little adjustments but for the most part we’ll just save our energy and get ready.”