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Zac Rinaldo doesn’t ‘plan on getting suspended’ or ‘taking stupid penalties’

Zac Rinaldo, Andy McElman

Zac Rinaldo, Andy McElman

AP

Zac Rinaldo is out to change his reputation as an undisciplined hockey player.

“[My game] is going to change in a better way for the team,” Rinaldo said, per the Bruins’ website. “I don’t plan on getting suspended; that’s the last thing I want to do. I don’t plan on taking stupid penalties; that’s the last thing I want to do, is hurt my team.

“Changing for the better will happen.”

Rinaldo was traded to Boston from Philadelphia in June. The 25-year-old forward has 572 PIM in 223 career NHL games. In January, he was suspended eight games for charging and boarding Pittsburgh’s Kris Letang from behind. At the time, he’d already been suspended twice and fined twice by the NHL.

Now with the B’s, he still intends to play a physical game, his acquisition not-so-coincidentally coming after GM Don Sweeney vowed to return “the aggressiveness that was lost in our group.”

He just plans to be a little smarter about it.

“I’m going to be the rough, tough Zac Rinaldo,” he said, “but I’m also going to add in more hockey sense.”