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BOSTON -- After completing the preseason exhibition schedule on Friday and then having Saturday off, the team returned to the practice ice Sunday to find the regular-season roster set.

The team sent forwards Ryan Spooner, Matt Fraser, Matt Lindblad and goaltender Niklas Svedberg to Providence of the AHL, and placed forward Nick Johnson on waivers.

When the Bruins host the Tampa Bay Lightning in the season opener on Thursday night at TD Garden, Boston will have 13 forwards, eight defensemen and two goalies on the roster. Earning spots were forwards Jordan Caron, Reilly Smith and Carl Soderberg, defenseman Kevan Miller and backup goaltender Chad Johnson.

“This was my goal, obviously, coming into camp to be with this club,” Johnson said. “I’m happy. I’m excited. It was a tough camp. Svedberg played great and had great camp, too. It was obviously a tough decision. We both played well. I’m happy I’m here. It was a tough camp, but it’s kind of like the easy part is over because you’ve got to play well during the season. I’m excited for it and I’ll focus on the day-to-day. It’s a tough league. The best players are here and this is where I want to be.”

Goaltender Tuukka Rask will see the bulk of the ice time and Johnson understands that. Meanwhile, Svedberg will split time between the pipes in Providence with prospect Malcolm Subban.

“Having good practices and playing those as they’re games, play those situations like they’re game situations,” Johnson said. “[Rask] is going to play a lot and he’s one of the best goalies in the league and he wins a lot of hockey games. I’ll be ready, and when I do get those games I’ll help this team win hockey games.

Coach Claude Julien doesn’t have a set game schedule for his goaltenders. Julien normally decides it on a weekly basis, taking into consideration the amount of games, the travel schedule, and whether Rask needs a rest.

“Sometimes he looks like he’s fresh and other times he may look tired and I’d rather make that decision then, than look too far ahead,” Julien said. “And that’s not to say that during that week I say, ‘Well maybe we can use him for these games and we’ll use the other goaltender for those ones.’ I do those things but I don’t necessarily stick to them as if it’s carved in stone. So I like to make decisions based on what I see and feel and what I think is right.”

Caron on a mission

It was evident a season ago that the Bruins were not happy with Caron’s development path. The talented forward spent the majority of the season with the P-Bruins. When he returned to Boston after the P-Bruins’ playoff run ended, Caron still couldn’t crack the lineup when the Bruins needed reinforcements due to injuries.

Caron admits he lost his confidence last season but believes it has returned, and still being on the roster helps.

“I know I can do it,” he said. “I just need to go out there, play my game, be confident and good things will happen.”

When he arrived at camp, he was noticeably more engaged and focused.

“The last couple of games I thought there was a little bit more urgency in his game, in doing the things we talked about,” Julien said. “His whole camp was what we know about Jordan. He was reliable and doing the things he has to do. But we asked him to do a little bit more.”

Caron worked on the penalty-killing unit. Offensively, he went to the net more and created more chances.

“That has to continue,” Julien said. “He’s 23 years old, he’s still a young player, and he’s a player that an organization doesn’t want to give up on too early. So we feel as coaches that we can help him improve and we’re going to work with him to make him improve in those areas.”

High expectations for Smith

Reilly Smith also impressed during training camp.

From the start, he was working the wing on the third line with center Chris Kelly. As training camp numbers decreased, Julien decided Soderberg, Kelly and Smith could work as the team’s third line.

Smith, who was one of the prospects the Bruins received from Dallas as part of the Tyler Seguin trade last summer, has 42 games of NHL experience with the Stars. The Bruins heavily scouted Dallas last season and were impressed with what they saw in Smith. The one thing Boston’s management wanted to see from Smith was more tenacity and grit, and he’s added that to his game with the Bruins.

As a result, the 22-year-old right wing earned a spot on the roster.

“It’s a great feeling, obviously, to be a part of this group,” Smith said. “But it doesn’t stop here. I’ve got to keep doing the same thing that I was doing to make this team.

“Playing with Kells and Soderberg is great,” added Smith. “There are two real good players and they help me a lot. It’s a competitive atmosphere here, so I’m just happy to be a part of it.”

After Bruins GM Peter Chiarelli rebuilt the team’s roster last summer, the depth in the organization was evident. He knew there would be an influx of youth for the 2013-2014 season. What he and Julien witnessed during training camp was satisfying and the team is ready to drop on puck for real on Thursday.

BOSTON -- Bruins forward Carl Soderberg is competing for a roster spot during training camp and he's hoping the brief contributions he made last spring will help his cause.

He arrived at camp in great shape and wants to prove he can help the Bruins. After he signed with Boston late last season, and transferred to the NHL from the Swedish Elite League, Soderberg played only six regular-season and two playoff games. Now, getting a fresh start at camp, he believes it will help his chances at earning a roster spot.

"Of course it's pretty nice to be here at the beginning of training camp, but the 11 weeks I had here last season meant so much to me," Soderberg said. "I got to know the guys and the staff, the game in the NHL, too. I had a good workout summer and I came back in good shape."

When Bruins forward Gregory Campbell suffered a broken right leg in the Eastern Conference finals against the Pittsburgh Penguins, Bruins coach Claude Julien was forced to tweak his lineup. At first, he inserted Kaspars Daugavins into the lineup, but in Game 5 of the Stanley Cup finals against the Chicago Blackhawks, Soderberg made his NHL playoff debut.

"It was a great experience," he said. "I got to play games in the NHL and it means a lot to me. I'm new here but I don't feel that new."

A natural centerman, Soderberg can play the wing, too. Even though he's been working as a center in the first two days of camp, he'll play any position in order to stay in the lineup.

"It depends what [Julien] wants to do," Soderberg said. "I can play winger or I can play center, it doesn't matter."

Bruins newcomer Loui Eriksson played against Soderberg in the SEL.

"He's a pretty strong player. He's pretty big and he can use his size over here. He has a good shot and he's pretty dangerous," Eriksson said.

At the end of last season, Julien admitted he didn't see enough of Soderberg to give an honest evaluation, but he's been impressed in the early going of training camp.

"He's looking good," Julien said. "He's lost weight but he's also gained some muscle. He was already a strong player to start with. I think he's looking good. When you see him in those battle drills, he's pretty strong on the puck and we like that about him. He's got a good skill level, he can shoot the puck well and make plays so he'll get a great opportunity in those preseason games to showcase himself and show the improvement."

* Only two days into camp, newcomer Jarome Iginla already appears comfortable playing with David Krejci and Milan Lucic.

"I've enjoyed it the last couple of days getting to skate with them," Iginla said. "They are great players and have great chemistry together. I'd like to play with them and help them out. As far as building chemistry, it's just time together and getting used to tendencies."

Once the exhibition games begin, it will give the Bruins' top line a chance to showcase its complete skill and there's no reason not to think that trio will have a major impact this season.

* Julien isn't ready to single out any of the young players just yet as to which one has stood out in the first two days of camp. Both he and GM Peter Chiarelli told the group of prospects during rookie camp that there are a few roster spots available for the taking. When asked who has impressed him the most so far, Julien said he's pleased with what he's seeing from all of them.

"There's a lot of them. There's nobody that is kind of on his own but there are a lot of good players who are showing some good things here," Julien said. "I think those kind of answers to me get answered during those preseason games because you've got some players that, going out would look great in practice but get them in a game situation they're really good players. And then you get the opposite, guys that are fine in practice, look great and you think, 'Wow, I can't wait to see them in a game' and the game starts and he becomes invisible or nothing gets accomplished. So you get those kind of players so to me, I'm careful about assessing players before I see them in a real game or a game type situation."

One player who has been really impressive has been forward Reilly Smith. He was one of the three prospects acquired from the Dallas Stars as part of the Tyler Seguin trade.

"Getting traded was obviously mixed emotions," Smith said. "It pretty much came out of left field. I wasn't expecting it at all going into this summer to be traded. I found out on Twitter, actually, so that was kind of funny. But it's a big difference coming from Dallas to Boston. There are higher expectations here."

The first two days Smith has been on the line with Chris Kelly and Jordan Caron.

* Set your DVRs because the second episode of the new all-access "Behind the B" series will air on Oct. 1 at 8 p.m. on NESN.

So, Boston Bruins general manager Peter Chiarelli wasn't just sending a message to Tyler Seguin after all.

Instead, he sent the 21-year-old forward packing and shipped him to the Dallas Stars, along with forward Rich Peverley and defenseman Ryan Button, in exchange for forward Loui Eriksson and prospects Joe Morrow, Reilly Smith and Matt Fraser.

The blockbuster deal ends Seguin's subpar three-year career in Boston. He never really lived up to expectations while in a Bruins sweater, and now, his $5.75 million cap hit per season is off the books.

Seguin, the No. 2 overall pick in 2010, struggled to produce offensively on a consistent basis. In 203 regular-season games for the Bruins, he scored 56 goals and added 65 assists for 121 points. In 42 playoff games, he had six goals and 12 assists for 18 points.

He helped the Bruins win the Stanley Cup in 2011 with a big series against the Tampa Bay Lightning in the Eastern Conference finals. This spring, though, he struggled and had only one goal and seven assists in 22 games as the Bruins lost to the Chicago Blackhawks in the finals.

Seguin had a hard time using his speed to his advantage, and opponents controlled him by keeping him to the perimeter, which made his shot useless.

The Bruins are moving him while he's young and relatively healthy, and Chiarelli was able to get a good deal in return.

Chiarelli criticized Seguin last weekend at the NHL draft, saying the forward needed to become a better pro. Bruins assistant captain Patrice Bergeron had his former linemate's back, but understood what the GM meant.

"I think Tyler's a young guy still and he's got a lot to learn," Bergeron said. "At the same time, he's improved a lot. At that stage, when you're learning like that, that's going to happen, you need to make sure you learn from it and find a way to get better. That's the main thing with him, it's about him finding ways to battle through it, find ways and build some character out of it. He's a terrific player, a terrific person, but sometimes you need to have some lows to get back up and feel better and play better.

"I thought he was really good the way he helped us. He found a way even though he wasn't scoring as much as he would like to. He was still battling hard and doing things, the little details that you don't always see on the score sheet, but it wasn't going unnoticed from us as players and teammates. He's a terrific young player, so he's going to learn."

As for the other players in the deal:

Eriksson, 27, is a solid left winger and posted 12 goals and 17 assists for 29 points in 48 games for the Stars this season.

Smith, 22, can play either wing and posted three goals and six assists for nine points in 37 games.

Morrow, 20, is a solid, puck-moving defenseman and spent this past season at the AHL level.

Fraser, 20, is a left winger and spent the majority of the season in the AHL, but did play in 12 games for Dallas.