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BOSTON -- No one really anticipated any bad blood from the recent Montreal-Boston wars to carry over into the Bruins' dressing room this season, but veteran winger Shawn Thornton has already taken precautions to prove there are no remaining vendettas between himself and former Canadiens agitator Steve Begin.

Begin, who signed with the Bruins as an unrestricted free agent over the summer after finishing up last season with Dallas, had been a proverbial thorn in the Bruins' side as a member of the hated Habs both with his rough stuff -- he actually fractured a bone in center Marc Savard's back with a crosscheck late in the 2007-08 season -- and his play: His line with Tom Kostopoulos and Bryan Smolinski made life hell for the Bruins in the '08 playoff series.

Thornton, the Bruins' perennial leader in fighting majors, pounded Begin in a preseason game between the Bruins and Habs last year in part as retaliation for the hit on Savard. But this fall, Thornton made a different gesture toward the Quebec native. He requested that Begin's stall in the TD Garden and Ristuccia Arena locker rooms be placed next to his. Although building a bond with his former foe and probably regular linemate would seem like reason No. 1 for the request, the rarely serious Thornton said there was another reason.

"I requested it. I didn't want him sitting next to a French guy so I'd have to hear that gibberish all day. So I make him speak English all the time now," explained Thornton with a smirk after one of the two practice sessions on the second day of training camp Monday.

But sitting next to Thornton comes with a price to pay for Begin.

"He doesn't stop [talking]. He's got a big mouth. But it's fun to be beside him. He's funny," said Begin, who's expected to fill the fourth-line hole left by the departure of Stephane Yelle.

If Begin decides to converse in his native tongue, Thornton said he could handle little French. "I can order breakfast for him if he forgets one day," Thornton said. More important to the Bruins, however, is how the two get along on the ice, where the ability of the Bruins' fourth line to wreak havoc and create some scoring chances can take heat off the other three lines and allow head coach Claude Julien to balance out ice time. In that vein, Begin might be the perfect fit.

"He's going to be great," Thornton said. "He works his ass off every shift and he gives it everything he has. He's a pain to play against. Those are the guys that you want with you instead of against you."

BOSTON -- When he showed up for informal skates in Wilmington a couple weeks ago, Boston Bruins center David Krejci boasted that he could be ready for opening night Oct. 1, despite early projections that he wouldn't be ready to play until November after offseason hip surgery.

Monday on Day 2 of training camp, Krejci tempered his expectations for the opening night game against Washington at TD Garden.

"What do we have 17 days, 2 1/2 weeks? Umm ... I don't know. I'll say there might be a little chance (of playing in the opener)," said Krejci, who skated in a small pre-practice group and then did non-contact drills with the first split squad Monday morning. "Not a big one. Maybe 10 percent. I can't say that there's zero percent because I feel pretty good on the ice. But I don't know what it will be one week from now. I think I probably won't be ready, but there's a little chance."

Krejci said toward the end of his 55 minutes of skating he started to feel some discomfort and left the ice. When he skates straight or crosses over to the left, he feels fine. But when he crosses over to the right, "that's where it hurts," he said. "It feels like it's not healed yet. I'd say it's the only thing when I'm crossing to the right side."

As eager as he is to be cleared for full contact, Krejci said he wants to be 100 percent. That's understandable considering the Bruins' second-leading scorer played through pain all of last season. Doctors have assured Krejci that when he's 100 percent, the pain will be a distant memory.

BOSTON -- It's going to be a lot easier for the Boston Bruins to move on without the 40-goal potential of restricted free agent holdout Phil Kessel if veteran winger Marco Sturm can make a 100 percent healthy return from season-ending knee surgery in January.

On Sunday at TD Garden, Sturm took the next step on his road to recovery by going through a full practice session with half the training camp squad on the first on-ice day of camp.

"It was good, it was really good. I had no pain, nothing. I was skating good. But at the same time I know I still have some work to do. So I'm not there yet, but I'm working at it," said Sturm, whose annual pursuit to score 30 goals in a season typically ends just a few scores short.

Sturm said he has experienced improvement from even just two weeks ago when he started skating hard at the team's practice facility in Wilmington, Mass. Defensemen Andrew Ference and Matt Hunwick, who also are making their way back after surgeries, echoed those sentiments.

Ference practiced today for the first time since his summer surgery for a groin injury and hernia.

"I'm still waiting to be 100 percent … but I felt really good as compared to a month ago, when training camp was looming, it was four weeks away and certain things were still lagging behind. I was a little more worried [then]. It definitely has progressed a lot," he said.

Hunwick had his postseason ended early when he had to undergo an emergency splenectomy in the days after the Bruins' Game 1 win over Montreal in the first round of the playoffs. Hunwick worked all summer to put most of his weight back on and get his strength level back where it was when camp opened last fall. Today he went through all the drills full-tilt and wasn't the slightest bit tentative.

"I think it's not bad getting hit; that's why we wear pads. Last year's injury was a bit fluky and there's nothing I can do about it now, so you just go out there and play and have fun."

So for all three recovering players, the mental hurdles have been cleared and all that's left are the physical battles. In Sturm's case, head coach Claude Julien was impressed with what he saw on the first day of camp.

"You've got to give Marco a lot of credit," said Julien. "He's worked really hard, especially at the end of last year when he started skating and over the course of the summer he came back midway through the summer and skated more, and he's really committed himself to come back in good shape and 100 percent. Today I saw a guy skating well. He didn't look like a guy that'd been out for a whole year. And hopefully with these exhibition games he'll find his touch again and will get more and more comfortable and hopefully be ready for the start of the season."

One other Bruins player recovering from offseason surgery, David Krejci, is starting out slow this camp. Krejci, who is rehabbing his hip, skated with a small group of players before the full practices took place. Julien said he expects Krejci to do the same Monday but then skate in non-contact drills with one of the two practice groups after that pre-practice skate.

BOSTON -- If the fact that the Boston Bruins were on the TD Garden ice Sunday for the first practices of their 2009 training camp wasn't enough to convince you it's hockey season, a couple of Zdeno Chara glass-shaking hits and a few Tim Thomas pad saves had to have done the trick.

Yes, it was back to work for many members of the 2008-09 Bruins, who came up short of their goals this spring after one of the best regular seasons in franchise history. A couple of faces have changed, and one (holdout Phil Kessel) is still in limbo, but for the most part this is the same club, which means most of these players still have something to prove.

If you can believe it, after practicing Sunday and Monday, the Bruins play their exhibition opener in New York on Tuesday night against the Rangers. So there's not a lot of time for the Bruins' brass to assess what they have before they have to compete against another club.

Here's a quick-hit list of issues the Bruins have to resolve between now and the start of the regular season less than three weeks from now:

1. Is Phil Kessel a Bruin or not?
The holdout winger has been the subject of more offer-sheet and trade rumors than any other free agent this offseason. Signs point to him being on the way out, but stranger things have happened.

2. Who's No. 2?
We know Vezina Trophy winner Thomas is the starting goaltender, and he'll get 50-55 starts this season. Whether he'll be backed up by veteran Dany Sabourin or rookie Tuukka Rask remains to be seen. Ideally, Rask makes the leap to the NHL to get a head start on what everyone expects will be a star-caliber career.

3. Can Sturm still storm the net?
The absence of Kessel will be less painful if winger Marco Sturm can come all the way back from last year's knee surgery and provide the speed and scoring he was known for before the injury.

4. Who's killing?
With penalty-kill specialists Stephane Yelle and P.J. Axelsson gone, and David Krejci still rehabbing his surgically repaired hip, the Bruins' much-improved penalty kill is going to need some personnel changes up front. Free-agent signee Steve Begin should be in the mix along with Sturm, Patrice Bergeron, Marc Savard and Blake Wheeler.

5. Is there a dark-horse player waiting to make the club?
Two years ago, Milan Lucic made the jump from major juniors to the NHL, and last season Wheeler skipped over the AHL on his way to regular ice time with the Bruins in his first year of pro hockey. There might not be any breakthroughs that dramatic this year, but forwards Brad Marchand and Zach Hamill, and defensemen Jeff Penner and Andrew Bodnarchuk -- who all spent last season with Providence (AHL) -- will all take a shot at earning an NHL job.

Well, it's finally here. The Boston Bruins opened training camp this weekend. For a lot of the summer, it seemed as though camp would never get here.

In terms of days, this offseason was the shortest for the Bruins in a decade because they actually won a playoff series and lasted seven games in the second round. But in terms of feel, this summer might've been the longest in some time because of the anticipation of even better things ahead for the Black and Gold.

The players and coaches have all reconvened in the Hub promising to pick up where last season ended and rally around the "unfinished business" they never got to accomplish when the Hurricanes' Scott Walker beat Tim Thomas in overtime of Game 7.

This is a great time to be involved with the Bruins. The team has been restored to some of its former, pre-lockout glory. Fan interest in the team has been piqued, and that's where ESPN Boston comes in. Many of you have been reading my coverage of the Bruins ever since that dreaded lockout ended July 22, 2005. Over the past year, you've logged on to TheBruinsBlog.net in numbers I couldn't even begin to fathom when I started that site last November.

Now you get an even bigger dose of me and my brand of Bruins coverage. You might find more of my work at this new URL than on my old one, but the 24-hour, 365-day nature of my coverage will not change. I'll fix the serious with the comical, the analytical with the opinionated, and bring it to you all season long and beyond. Even if you're reading my coverage for the first time, it won't take long to figure out where I'm coming from and where I'm going.

So with my introductions and re-introductions out of the way, it's time to turn toward the 2009-10 Bruins season. I'll dig deeper into the specifics of the Bruins' needs and goals for this camp later, but I want to leave you with one word to remember throughout camp: improvement.

The Bruins will be only as strong as the strides their best players have taken to make themselves better. If Marc Savard didn't return for his second season as a two-way force worthy of penalty-kill time, the Bruins wouldn't be where they are now. If Dennis Wideman didn't reward the Bruins' long-term faith in him by cutting back on his risk-taking and become a more reliable blueliner with the same amount of offensive pizzazz, Boston wouldn't be among the handful of Stanley Cup contenders as this season approaches.

So more than anything this camp, we'll be looking to find where the Bruins have improved. Individual improvements combine to make team improvements, and a team that lost in the second round of the playoffs obviously has room to grow.

And you'll be able to read all about the Bruins' accomplishments and shortcomings every day at ESPNBoston.com.