ESPN

BOSTON -- Once the Stanley Cup playoff matchups were determined, Boston Bruins forward Tyler Seguin and Toronto Maple Leafs forward Phil Kessel knew they would be part of the storyline for this Eastern Conference quarterfinal series.

Hockey fans, especially in Toronto and Boston, have known since June 2010 that Seguin could have possibly played for the Maple Leafs if the organization hadn’t traded first-round picks in the 2010 and 2011 NHL Entry Draft to the Bruins to acquire Kessel in September of 2009.

The Bruins selected Seguin with the No. 2 overall pick in 2010, and then defenseman Dougie Hamilton ninth overall in 2011.

Seguin helped the Bruins to a Stanley Cup title during his rookie season and this will be his third trip to the playoffs. Kessel hasn’t been in the postseason since he was with the Bruins during the 2008-2009 playoffs.

When the puck drops for Game 1 Wednesday night at TD Garden, no doubt the chants of “Thank you, Kessel” will be heard from the 17,565 in attendance.

It’s no secret Kessel has never enjoyed speaking with the media, especially when asked about the trade and the chants when plays in Boston.

“It was four years ago, right? So I don’t think it matters that much anymore,” Kessel said.

“It’s never been me to [think] much of the attention. I’ll talk when I have to talk and that’s about it.”

Seguin almost feels the same way about the transaction that ultimately made him a Bruin, and when he first heard those “Thank you, Kessel” chants in 2010, he laughed.

“First time I thought it was funny, just because it was my first year and I kind of smirked on the bench,” Seguin said. “Since then, fans can do what they want to do. The fans show great support here in Boston, but it’s not going to change how I play, and I’m sure it’s not going to change how he plays, either.

“It’s not like Toronto knew I was going to be the pick. It was just a pick and it happened to be me and Dougie, so I guess it’s just going to be linked through what people want to talk about and have stories. Other than that, Phil’s a great player and I definitely respect him on the ice. I’ve met him a few times off the ice and he’s a good guy, too.”

During his career with the Maple Leafs, Kessel has struggled against the Bruins and defenseman Zdeno Chara. In 22 games, Kessel has only three goals and six assists for nine points against Boston, including a minus-22 rating.

Overall this season, Kessel played well and recorded 20 goals and 32 assists for 52 points in 48 games for the Leafs. He was held pointless in four games against the Bruins.

He’s hoping to have better success in the playoffs.

“It’s going to be fun, right?” Kessel said. “Obviously I’m excited. It’s a good opportunity for myself and the team, we haven’t been in the playoffs for a while, so we’re looking to have a good time out there tonight.

“I like it here [Boston]. I had three great years here, some great memories. They were great to me when I was here,” added Kessel. “When you leave you’re always going to get the grief, right? It’s OK but I enjoy playing here, they have great fans and I think it’s going to be a great atmosphere tonight.

“It’s about the team, right? We’re going to have to play a good, hard game out there because they’re a great team over there. It’s going to be a battle.”

Once this series was scheduled, Seguin received numerous text messages from friends and family back home, asking for tickets. He jokingly said he shut off his phone so he could concentrate on the series. He did admit, however, it’s going to be a cool experience playing against the team he grew up watching.

“It was my hometown and I would go do Leaf games all the time,” Seguin said. “When we play at the ACC, I kind of look up to some sections where I know I was sitting growing up with a kid with my dad. I grew up hoping the Leafs would make the playoffs, and here they are playing against us. It’s a cool experience, an exciting experience, but I want to take it as just a playoff round and not about who you’re playing. You’ve got to make sure you’re ready.”

WILMINGTON, Mass. -- The Air Canada Centre should be exhilarating Saturday night when the Toronto Maple Leafs host the Boston Bruins in a Northeast Division matchup.

Of course, a lot of attention will be on Bruins rookie defenseman Dougie Hamilton, who will be playing in front of his hometown team. In fact, all three players involved in the now-infamous 2009 trade between the Bruins and Maple Leafs will be on display with Hamilton, Bruins forward Tyler Seguin and Maple Leafs forward Phil Kessel.

The Maple Leafs acquired Kessel from Boston on Sept. 18, 2009, in exchange for Toronto's first- and second-round picks in the 2010 NHL draft, which turned into Seguin and Jared Knight, respectively. Not only that, the Bruins also received the Leafs' first-round pick in 2011, which ended up being Hamilton.

On Saturday, Hamilton will be on the ice along with Seguin and Kessel at Air Canada Centre.

"It's exciting," Hamilton said. "I grew up watching games in that rink and dreamt of playing there in the NHL. I guess I always dreamt of playing for the Leafs, but as I've gotten older, it will be cooler to be on the other side."

To say the Bruins have dominated the Maple Leafs in recent history would be a huge understatement.

Boston swept the Leafs during the 2011-12 season and outscored them 36-10 in six games. The Bruins also have a 23-5-5 record in their past 33 games against the Maple Leafs. Boston is 12-2-3 in its past 17 games at Toronto.

This season, Toronto coach Randy Carlyle and the Maple Leafs are 4-3-0 for eight points. They're playing better hockey.

"With Randy there, they're certainly a team that's competing very hard and he's going to get the most out of his players -- he always has," said Bruins coach Claude Julien.

The Leafs already have wins over Montreal, Pittsburgh, Buffalo and Washington. The Bruins have a chance to end a tough stretch of four games in six nights on a positive note with a win in Toronto on Saturday night.

"Every game for us has got to be viewed as almost a must-win and tough games," Julien said. "You can't take anybody for granted. [Thursday's loss] was a perfect example, we didn't take [Buffalo] for granted, it just means anybody can win on any given night.

"So we have to make sure we go in there with the right intentions, and doing that, and then coming out with a win gives us a 3-1 record this week with four games in six days. That would be a pretty good accomplishment. If not, we finish .500, which for us is not good enough."

The Maple Leafs do present a challenge for Boston. This season could be different, and the Bruins understand that.

"They're playing with a lot of confidence and they're beating some really good teams," said Bruins captain Zdeno Chara. "We've got to be ready for them. They're skating well and playing with a lot of energy. For sure, it's going to be a tough game."

Maple Leafs center Nazem Kadri leads the team in scoring with three goals and four assists for seven points. Kessel has four assists with a minus-2 rating.

"They've been playing well," said Bruins forward Gregory Campbell. "They've bought into their system and their coach has them playing really well. Good teams never want to lose two games in a row, so it's important for us in another divisional game, a game that's attainable if we work hard. It would make it a pretty good week for us with a pretty tough schedule, a tough week, but it's not going to be easy. I think we're up for the challenge."

BOSTON -- The 17,565 fans in attendance for the Boston Bruins' game against the Toronto Maple Leafs on Thursday night at the Garden made sure Bruins rookie Tyler Seguin knew how they felt about him.

Immediately following Seguin’s second goal of the season, his first on home ice, fans began to chant: “Thank you, Kessel! Thank you, Kessel! Thank you, Kessel!”

Of course, one of the reasons Seguin is wearing a Bruins sweater is because Boston acquired Toronto’s first-round pick in the 2010 draft in exchange for Phil Kessel prior to the 2009-10 season. That selection resulted in the No. 2 overall pick, and the Bruins grabbed Seguin.

After Boston’s 2-0 victory over the Leafs, Bruins coach Claude Julien claims he didn’t hear the chant because he was focusing on the game.

“Somebody told me that was the chant, and that’s what our fans are all about,” Julien said. “They are great fans. They support the people who are here and taunt the people who were here and are gone. To me, those are perfect fans.”

Kessel, who spent three seasons in Boston, claims he wasn't bothered by it.

"I could care less to tell you the truth," he said. "It doesn't matter to me one bit."

WILMINGTON, Mass. -- Boston Bruins forward David Krejci may have trouble chewing his food right now, but he’s ready to take a huge bite out of the Toronto Maple Leafs and former teammate Phil Kessel on Thursday night at TD Garden.

Krejci had one wisdom tooth removed, along with a couple of other teeth, on Monday and needed to miss practice. He was back on the ice Tuesday and Wednesday at Ristuccia Arena and will be ready for the 5-2-1 Maple Leafs.

He said it’s been a little difficult to eat, but he’s fine. Even skating hasn’t been an issue with the wind getting into his mouth.

“It doesn’t feel that bad, actually,” he said. “I feel pretty good.”

As far as facing his former teammate again, Krejci is focusing on his own game.

“[Kessel’s] having a pretty good start,” Krejci said. “Hopefully we’ll make it hard on him, and make him want to quit and hope he has a bad game, so we can focus on our own game.”

Kessel has 7 goals and 2 assists for 9 points in 8 games for the Maple Leafs this season.

BOSTON -- The book is officially closed on the "Phil Kessel vs. the Bruins" story.

From here on out, Kessel is just another dangerous offensive weapon the Bruins have to account for when they play Toronto or whatever teams he plays on over the next decade or so.

For the second time in a week, the Bruins kept Kessel off the score sheet Thursday night, limiting him to two shots on net in a 5-2 win at TD Garden. Sure he was a little more active that he was Saturday -- firing three shots wide of the goal and one that was blocked -- but the word "nonfactor" easily could have preceded his name for all 120 minutes of action.

"Well, some guys know him here and I think he played a lot against (Zdeno Chara), so it was a tough night for him again and that's what we've got to do, take away their best players," said Bruins center David Krejci.

Like Nic Cage as "Ghost Rider" and Guns N' Roses' "Chinese Democracy" album, reality didn't live up to the hype for either "Kessel-mania I" or "Kessel-mania II" -- as NESN dubbed the two games. Boston showed its veteran savvy by not getting distracted by No. 81 in blue and white and just playing their game. For much of the game Thursday night, Boston kept pucks deep, made Toronto play in its own end and rode Tuukka Rask's lights-out goaltending to victory.

"I think our guys have handled that well with the 'Kessel-mania' and everything that is being thrown out there," coach Claude Julien said. "I thought that we did a good job of not letting that stuff get to us. We just focused on the games. Having said that, [Kessel] is a pure goal-scorer. If you give him room and space, he is going to score some goals. Our guys know him well and reacted well and did a good job against him."

For all the talk about him being able to play his game now that he's free of the Bruins' system, Kessel made the Bruins' decision to trade him look like an addition-by-subtraction situation.

That's not to say that Kessel isn't a lethal offensive player. His 10-6--16 totals in 19 games prove that. Nor does it mean that the Bruins have enough offense without him to skate off with the Stanley Cup. It becomes more and more obvious week by week that when the March trade deadline arrives, general manager Peter Chiarelli's main target is going to have to be a scoring winger.

But Kessel's quiet performances against his former team prove that the Bruins are still one of the top two or three defensive teams in the league, a fact that makes them a postseason threat. With their win Thursday and Buffalo idle, the Bruins moved back into first place in the Northeast Division.

Kessel's showing also proves that sometimes conformity can benefit a team and a player. If Kessel was able to score 36 goals in just 70 games in Julien's "rigid" system last season, there's no telling how many he could have scored in a full 82 (although he wouldn't have played that many this season because of offseason shoulder surgery). But how many goals is he really going to score with Toronto coach Ron Wilson letting him do what he wants? Will he score 60, 70? Not likely in a league where 50-goal scorers are a rarity. Even if he erupted for a historic amount of goals, it would take a miraculous run for the last-place Leafs to get a sniff at the playoffs.

The grass is always greener. But the Bruins can go out and make a move or two to replace Kessel's offense if their present roster doesn't pick up the slack. Kessel can't go out and hire a new supporting cast. That's something he'll have to live with.

Loose pucks

Mark Stuart's goal snapped a 22-game pointless streak for the Bruins' blueliner & Byron Bitz missed the game with illness. He left the morning skate early and never made it back to the rink. Daniel Paille filled in for Bitz on the first line, with natural defenseman replacing Paille on a line with Steve Begin and Shawn Thornton. Hunwick played a handful of games up front last year as well & Dennis Wideman logged 23:35 of ice time -- a team-high -- despite not practicing all week because of a lower-body injury.

BOSTON -- As the Phil Kessel saga unfolded, a lot was made about the winger's reportedly rocky relationship with head coach Claude Julien.

One report had the player and bench boss feuding all the time, and one even said that the type of stick Kessel used at one point became a bone of contention.

Saturday on the day after Kessel was dealt to Toronto for three draft picks, Julien tried to explain that his relationship wasn't much different than the one he has with the rest of his players.

"I'm not going to sugar coat this; he wasn't any different than a lot of players to deal with at times. You never have smooth relationships because there's challenges along the way," said Julien, whose defensive-minded system obviously didn't always jive with the offense-first approach Kessel was used to taking all his career."What you've got to do as a coach is convince those guys and make them understand and believe that this is what we need to do to be the best team possible, what you need to do to be the best player possible.

"We all know that Phil's grown up as a superstar player and those guys will always be a bigger bit of a challenge. But I can tell you honestly that last year there were no issues as far as him resisting, and there shouldn't have been because obviously his season proved that he was very successful."

Before Julien came on board, Kessel was minus-12 as a rookie in 2006-07. During Julien's first season Kessel improved to minus-6 and then made the meteoric rise to plus-23 to go along with his team-high 36 goals last season.

There are a lot of ways the Bruins can make up for Kessel's departure, including adding a healthy Marco Sturm back in the lineup, leaning on a healthier Patrice Bergeron and Matt Hunwick, and maximizing Derek Morris' potential now that he has signed and is in the mix. Julien is in no way panicked now that the post-Kessel era has started.

"You hope that through some of the young guys and others that as a team we'll make up for that difference," he said."It's one player and we have some young players that we feel are going to get better, so we really have to focus on moving forward without him and not thinking for a second that now we've turned from a good team to a bad team. I think we'll be just fine."

BOSTON -- Boston Bruins general manager Peter Chiarelli has a strict policy of not discussing trade rumors and contract negotiations through the media.

But Saturday at a press conference at TD Garden to discuss Friday night's trade of Phil Kessel to Toronto for three draft picks, Chiarelli was so determined to get his message out he even brought some notes on a yellow piece of paper up to the podium.

Chiarelli expressed his reasons for dealing his team's leading goal-scorer from year ago as straight-forward as he could.

"This trade is really about two things," he said. "One, it's about a player that did not want to play in Boston. And two, it's about the threat, or a perceived threat of an offer sheet."

Chiarelli also made clear that despite early attempts to get the restricted free agent to re-sign, signing Kessel "was not going to happen." Kessel and his agent, Wade Arnott, asked for a trade in early July, not long after a draft-day trade that would have sent the forward to Toronto fell through. That Toronto was willing both to make a firm offer to the Bruins and also to meet Kessel's asking price -- he signed a contract worth a reported five years and $27 million with the Leafs before the deal was finalized last night -- made the trade option the most attractive.

"I know the history here, but this isn't about frugality," Chiarelli said. "There were some significant offers made. There was really little or no attempt to negotiate from the other side. And I think for a reason, the reason I've explained earlier [that Phil wanted out]. So I have to make the decision that's best for the organization and in light of the circumstances. And I'm very happy with the return we got; it's a very high return."

The Bruins now own five picks in the first two rounds of next June's draft -- their own first- and second-round picks, Toronto's picks in those two rounds and Tampa Bay's second-round pick. Those picks will either turn into prospects or can be bargaining chips this season if the Bruins are looking to upgrade through a trade.

"I can't stress the importance enough of the fact that these picks are significant, especially in light of the strength of the amateur draft coming up. There are some serious players that are coming up," Chiarelli said.

The Kessel trade ends months of speculation and innuendo that could've carried over into the season and created a distraction for the team. There was also that threat of an offer sheet, which if matched could've created roster havoc for the Bruins. Chiarelli talked about one scenario by which the Bruins would have had to clear the cap space to match an offer sheet and then place Kessel, who is expected to be out until November after offseason shoulder surgery, on long-term injured reserve. The Bruins could have even stored him there the whole season. But that option was never realistic because Chiarelli and his staff projected it would do too much damage to the lineup.

For the foreseeable future, Kessel will try to do damage to the Bruins in a Maple Leafs sweater. Chiarelli's ready to take the heat every time Kessel uses his blazing speed to do something that winds up on the evening sports report. But Chiarelli doesn't regret anything he did over the past few months nor does he regret the final decision to make the trade with Toronto.

"We're just going to hear about it a lot, I'm going to hear about it a lot, so that's going to be fun," Chiarelli said. "But that's part of the consideration. We evaluated the draft picks that we would be getting and we evaluated where we think the acquiring team is going to finish in the draft. So that was part of the equation. At the end of the day, but for one late team, we really didn't have a firm offer."

It's finally over.

The weight that is finally off the shoulders of the Boston Bruins is the 180 pounds of Phil Kessel (without pads and skates) and his contract impasse. After a summer of more trade rumors than contract talks, Kessel was dealt to Toronto on Friday night for two first-round picks and a second-round pick.

Quiet off the ice, lethal with a stick in his hand, and possessing an awesome combination of speed and a flair for the dramatic (who can forget all those shootout-clinching goals), Kessel priced himself out of Boston's plans and now he's headed to Toronto, where he'll have a chance to victimize the division rival Bruins six times a season.

However, the Bruins team Kessel will be squaring off against in the next six months won't be one left wanting by his departure. If a lineup without Kessel could not contend for the Stanley Cup, general manager Peter Chiarelli would have had no choice but to make the necessary moves to his current roster to clear room for Kessel and what turned out to be a $5.4 million-per-season contract.

Just one week into camp, the Bruins already have glanced at how they're going to be able to go on without Kessel. With a healthy Matt Hunwick and a rejuvenated Derek Morris around, Boston's transition game will be improved and its power play will be even better than last season. Up front, Patrice Bergeron is looking more like his old self; Marco Sturm -- who missed most of last season after knee surgery -- has been returning to his speedy form; and David Krejci is ahead of schedule in recovering from offseason hip surgery.

The same talent evaluators who tabbed Kessel in the first round of the 2005 draft have provided the club with a solid talent pool below the NHL level, starting with 2007 first-rounder Zach Hamill, who could be ready to make the NHL leap at some point this season.

Now this isn't to say the Bruins will be better than or even equal to the team that finished second in the NHL in total goals last season. It just means there will still be plenty of offense. But when you have the stingiest defense in the league with the Vezina Trophy winner (Tim Thomas) returning to play goal, you can afford to suffer a slight drop-off in your offensive game.

Although some will say dealing Kessel without getting a player for the here and now is a tragic mistake, those folks have to look at the Bruins' stockpile of draft picks as a commodity teams are going to want when it comes time for Chiarelli to fine-tune his club during the season. By my count, the Bruins now have two first-round and three second-round picks in next June's draft. They also have two first-round picks for 2011. That's a real position of strength for Chiarelli if and when he determines he needs to bolster his crew.

There's no doubt that Kessel is a gifted offensive player who showed he could be motivated to play a three-zone game last season. He will be missed. If healthy, he's going to go to Toronto and score bundles of goals, although the predictions of 50 a year are a bit exaggerated (there have been only seven players to score 50 goals in a season since the lockout, and Kessel isn't in their class if you ignore that Jonathan Cheechoo miracle year).

The Bruins are gambling that they are a championship team even without Kessel or an equal replacement, and their recent track record says they have a pretty solid gauge on such matters. In the grand scheme, that's all that matters.