With five days between the end of the Conference Finals and the beginning of the Stanley Cup Finals, we’re finding out connections between the Vancouver Canucks and Boston Bruins we never would have explored during the regular season. A perfect example is Canucks’ defenseman Andrew Alberts who has spent the majority of the 2011 playoffs in the press box for Vancouver. The 6’5” blueliner only played in 42 games over the course of the regular season and has only seen action in three games this year’s playoffs. The Canucks are his fourth team in four seasons.
The reason Andrew Alberts is a story this week is because he played 184 games with the Bruins from 2005-2008. Despite stops in Philadelphia and Carolina, after he left Boston, there are still a few players on the current Bruins team that he shared a locker room with during his time with the team. However, as Alberts told WEEI in Boston, things have changed a bit since he left in 2008.“Though there’s been significant roster turnover over the years in Boston, the likes of Patrice Bergeron, Zdeno Chara, Shawn Thornton, Andrew Ference, David Krejci, Tim Thomas and Michael Ryder are among those who are still on the team. Though some faces remain, the biggest chance since Alberts last played for the Bruins is clear: They are winning.
“It was a little bit different when I was there,” Alberts recalled. “We were kind of rebuilding and what not. We didn’t have a real great team, so it’s going to be excited to see the Fleet Center, the — what is it — the TD Bank North Garden or whatever now? To see it rocking. The city will be behind them for sure. It’s going to be a tough environment to play in.”
Despite his intimate knowledge of some of the Bruins forwards, Alberts will most likely spend the series in the press box rooting for his current team. In his three playoff games this year he hasn’t registered a single shot on goal and is a minus 2. Before the appeared in the Chicago series in the first round, Alberts hadn’t seen the ice since Valentine’s Day.
Appearing in about half of Vancouver’s regular season games this season, he registered a goal and six assists with 41 penalty minutes. The Canucks gave up a 3rd round pick to acquire him from the Carolina Hurricanes at the trade deadline last year, but he’s slid down the depth chart as Vancouver has continued to acquire defensemen to bolster their defensive depth. Both Dan Hamhuis and Keith Ballard were acquired in the offseason, while younger players Aaron Rome and Christopher Tanev have also passed him on the depth chart.
But if there are a few injuries to the back-end of the Canucks line-up, he may see some time against his former team.