2012 NHL All-Star Game: Best-Case Scenario for Each Participating Bruin

With the captain, coaching staff and Conn Smythe winner from last year’s Stanley Cup champions on their side, Team Chara may want to Xerox portions of the 2010-11 Boston Bruins’ playbook in their pursuit of bragging rights Sunday afternoon.

Actually, the smaller-scaled parallels to last year’s title series go beyond the Bruin-laden bench.

Last June, Zdeno Chara, Tim Thomas, Tyler Seguin and Claude Julien’s staff had to clinch their title in front of a hostile Vancouver crowd against the President’s Trophy winners.

In this year’s NHL All-Star game, they will have to deal with a Scotiabank Place audience doubtlessly favoring a squad led by local captain Daniel Alfredsson and three of his Ottawa Senators teammates.

Bad blood escalated over a span of two weeks between two previously unfamiliar Bruins and Canucks teams. Likewise, Team Chara’s enemy persona in the eyes of the Ottawa crowd was enhanced when every possible Toronto Maple Leaf joined their club in Thursday’s fantasy draft.

Seguin figures to inject valuable vigor, and the three veterans representing the Spoked-B in this showcase already have a favorable history to build upon. Chara boasts a perennially peerless slapper, Thomas is on a three-game All-Star winning streak and Julien is 1-0 in his career behind an All-Star bench.

How each of the four Boston ambassadors can hold an outstanding influence on a Team Chara victory is assessed as follows.

Zdeno Chara

Odds are that Daniel and Henrik Sedin will be allied on the same line for Team Alfredsson, and there will be few, if any, special teams’ segments.

Provided Team Chara assigns their namesake to neutralize the Sedins, they should win the battle on at least one level. The only potential drawback is Team Alfredsson getting the last change, but Chara is indefatigable enough to make most of his shifts coincide with those of the twins, who have a particularly hard time circumventing him during five-on-five play.

In the other attacking zone, at least one salsa-based biscuit is going to have to come off the visiting captain’s twig en route to the net. Whether he tallies firsthand or picks up a helper courtesy of a teammate's deflection or rebound conversion, Chara ought to have his third multi-point effort in six All-Star appearances.

Tyler Seguin

On two occasions over the last 16 years, a Bruin has tallied a go-ahead, game-winning goal for the Eastern Conference with less than a minute remaining in regulation. Ray Bourque was the hometown hero in a 5-4 triumph at the FleetCenter in 1996, and Marc Savard connected in the clutch for an 8-7 victory at Atlanta’s Philips Arena in 2008.

Can lightning strike thrice in favor of Team Chara? And can Seguin capitalize on a generally open, offensive affair en route to a multi-goal, multi-point performance?

Tim Thomas

Although Jimmy Howard has been the best third-period stopper this season, and in spite of his recent struggles, having his regular captain and coaching staff on his side improves Thomas’ chances of being trusted to close out another All-Star victory.

Don’t count on Thomas being the first goaltender to pitch a 20-minute shutout since Evgeni Nabokov did it during the 2008 midseason exhibition. But if he enters this game with a tie or a lead already at hand, he can actually improve on his past performances.

All that would require is to avoid letting Team Alfredsson usurp the upper hand, as he has done before recovering for the victory in 2008, 2009 and 2011.

Limit the home team to two goals in his period, or no more than one goal for every six or seven shots on net, and Thomas could be an All-Star MVP candidate.

Claude Julien

If the opportunity arises, Julien can overtly influence this game by exercising some of his tactical fortes. For instance, if Team Chara ices the puck to bail itself out of a protracted shift in the defensive zone in the middle of the second period, when the long change strands all five skaters, a timeout will be in order.

Julien has done just that on multiple occasions in his full-time job behind the Bruins' bench. More often than not, the unorthodox timing of his one allotted respite has proven to avert or reverse an unfavorable swing in momentum.

Other than that, Julien’s duties will mostly consist of formulating effective line combinations and defensive pairings. The latter need not place too much emphasis on physicality, although an alliance of Chara and Brian Campbell could still shut down the Sedins and also constitute a sound passer-shooter combination on the points.

Finding the right linemates for Seguin ought to be Julien’s most intriguing pregame or in-game endeavor. There aren’t exactly any carbon copies of Brad Marchand on Team Chara’s roster, but Pavel Datsyuk and Joffrey Lupul are close enough to Patrice Bergeron in terms of faceoff proficiency, playmaking and leadership.

If his squad nabs an early edge and stays consistently ahead of Team Alfredsson, Julien will not need to shake anything up and the hardest parts of his job will be over earlier than usual.