The new man has a new approach

Peter Chiarelli's most critical offseason move wasn't picking Manny Fernandez off the Minnesota roster. Nor was it signing Shawn Thornton. Or trading for Peter Schaefer.

The general manager kicked off his overhaul by taking his broom to the Bruins bench and sweeping out coach Dave Lewis and associate coach Marc Habscheid. Chiarelli then put his most significant piece in play by hiring Claude Julien as coach less than a week later.

One of the most alarming aspects of 2006-07 was the confluence of underwhelming performances from core players, a simultaneous batch of poor seasons that punctured any hopes for a postseason appearance.

Aside from a few fixes, the roster that will kick off 2007-08 against Dallas tomorrow has undergone minimal renovation from the one that faded to the finish last spring. Chiarelli's assumption, however, is that the presence of Julien - the third Boston coach in three years - will lift the play of the players who underperformed last season.

Following are six of the biggest tactical changes Julien has introduced:

Hard and smart. Perhaps the biggest change Julien considered necessary was to last season's passive forecheck. Julien wants his first forechecker to charge into the zone, forcing the puck carrier to make a bad decision.

"The first forechecker is the guy that dictates everything," Julien said. "He has to get in there quick and establish contact."

The second man in must read the play and determine which way the puck might move. If the first forechecker forces a turnover, the second has to win the puck. If an opposing defenseman fires a pass, the second man should anticipate where the puck might be headed.

"That second guy's got to be there to pick up the loose puck," said Julien. "If he's going to be a little late and delayed, there's no use in having two guys running out of position and getting beat with one pass. You have to be smart and be able to read those situations. We talk about reading off each other. That's the perfect example."

Thinking inside the box. "Last year," recalled Bobby Allen, "it seemed like we were mixed up in our zone at times. I don't know if it was system or lack of execution at times last year."

Julien has introduced a box-plus-one defensive system in which one player defends the puck carrier and the other four skaters stay in a zone formation between the net and attackers, rotating and collapsing as the play dictates. Communication is critical to make the box-plus-one work, as players must read off each other and keep the formation tight in all situations.

One of Julien's pet peeves is players running around in their zone. If played correctly, the box-plus-one dictates where attackers must go next, meaning the Bruins must position themselves correctly to direct and anticipate puck movement.

"Claude wants us to be aggressive. But with that aggression, we have to be patient," said Allen. "He doesn't want us chasing all over the zone. At the same time, he doesn't want us being slow to the puck and being first in there to battle. We don't have to chase all over the D zone to cover our man. Eventually, our man's going to skate back to us. We're responsible for our own area of the ice in the defensive zone. So it's a system that relies on everybody to be on the same page and doing their own job to make the collective unit work."

Twice as nice. The Bruins started last season with two point men on the power play, but switched to an umbrella formation - Zdeno Chara at the top and Patrice Bergeron and Marc Savard at the tops of the circles on the No. 1 unit - after the man-advantage sputtered. It worked for a while, as the Bruins climbed to No. 4 on the power play, but they finished the season 19th. They also allowed an NHL-worst 18 shorthanded goals.

"By the end, everybody knew what we were doing," said Savard, who scored 49 of his 96 points on the power play. "We never really adjusted."

Julien prefers two men on the point, giving the power play a different look. Chara, Bergeron, Dennis Wideman, Andrew Ference, and Andrew Alberts have all seen preseason time at the points, taking shots and moving pucks in hopes of opening up the four-man penalty-killing box of opposing clubs. Also, two players can go into retreat mode if a shorthanded break takes place.

One advantage of Julien's formation is that there is more movement and rotation among the power-play men. Last season, the players were stationary at times, allowing opponents to anticipate cross-ice passes from Savard to Bergeron and point blasts by Chara.

"It's not really flat-footed," Bergeron said. "I think we're moving from the overload to the spread. That's working out. If you stop moving, all they need to do is stand in front of you."

Middle men. If there was an underbelly to Boston's penalty kill last year, it was the slot area. Forwards would set up between the circles, left open to crank away one-timers.

This season, while the slot is the priority for defensemen, forwards are also being instructed to go lower and assist by marking high shooters.

"Now we're having more help from our top forward collapsing into the slot and giving defensemen help for that one-timer," said Allen. "I think teams were exploiting us last year. That top forward was finding a soft area in the ice and getting some good scoring chances. As defensemen, we're really relying on the forwards to help us out in the slot with their sticks and being active. At the same time, they have to get out and shield the point men and block shots."

The forwards must also force attackers to the outside, containing them along the walls and funneling them down to the defensemen.

"If the guy gets to a certain point on the half-wall, that's when you try and force him back down toward the D so they can finish him off," Glen Metropolit said. "It's a lot of good angling, good sticks."

The big three. Because of his philosophy, along with a lack of personnel, Lewis rolled out a third line of traditional checkers, with Mark Mowers, Wayne Primeau, and Shean Donovan (all no longer with the team) serving as the usual threesome.

In New Jersey, Julien had one of the league's most effective checking lines in Jay Pandolfo, John Madden, and Sergei Brylin. But he will deploy a more skilled third line, with P.J. Axelsson, David Krejci, and Phil Kessel the likeliest candidates, mirroring the speedy and balanced attacks of Northeast Division opponents such as Ottawa and Montreal.

Axelsson is a defensive specialist whose knack of forcing turnovers can give his linemates odd-man rushes. In the preseason finale against the Islanders, Axelsson sprung Krejci loose for a one-on-one, and the rookie center juked around forward Jon Sim and whipped a wrist shot past goalie Rick DiPietro. The speed and skill of Kessel on the wing give the third line even more of an offensive dynamic.

Practice makes perfect. During camp, the practices weren't particularly long. But the sessions were fast-paced and packed with drills, giving the players little time to recover. While Julien went to the board to diagram drills and plays, he and assistants Craig Ramsay, Geoff Ward, and Doug Houda often talked to players individually.

"You don't have time to sit around," Alberts said. "Everything's high-paced. You get tired after every drill. Everything's hard. Everything's quick. Everything's fast. If you don't do it right, they stop the drill and make sure you do it right. Last year, it was a little more laid-back. This year, everything's intense. It might not be super long, but everything's hard."