Sounding the attack at camp

“It’s going to be tough,’’ said Boston general manager Peter Chiarelli, who spent much of last week in Kitchener, Ontario, watching many of the franchise’s top rookies play in a four-team tournament. “We moved a player [Peter Schaefer] last year to allow Blake [Wheeler] to play - he was outstanding and he deserved it. But you are going to have to knock the socks off of us to [make the team].’’

All of which, short of a Stanley Cup, is the best measure of a franchise’s success. The Bruins rolled up 53 victories and 116 points last season, tops in the Eastern Conference, and even with 36-goal scorer Phil Kessel out of the mix (temporarily or permanently), coach Claude Julien has a roster that underwent minimal offseason makeover.

Tuukka Rask will supplant Manny Fernandez as the Vezina-winning Tim Thomas’s backup. Matt Hunwick, back in full working order after rupturing his spleen during the playoffs, is expected to move into full-time work as one of the Julien’s six defensemen, leaving Johnny Boychuk possibly to pick off the No. 7 spot. Vladimir Sobotka or Brad Marchand could win a spot aside fourth-liners Shawn Thornton and Steve Begin. Otherwise, despite being upended by Carolina in the second round of the playoffs, the emphasis is on status quo for the Black and Gold.

According to Chiarelli, the main points going into both camp and the season will be attitude and execution. One of the key changes during Julien’s first two years behind the bench was to consistently bring a defenseman into the offensive attack, along with emphasizing the need to make better decisions with the puck - both on the attack and while in transition - through the neutral zone. This year, the GM and coach hope an improved forecheck will aid in upgrading the attack across all three zones.

“We added the defenseman to the rush last year and I think it helped, opened up our game,’’ said Chiarelli, about to enter his fourth season as Causeway Street’s chief decision-maker. “With that defenseman joining the rush, No. 1, you’ve got four men [attacking] instead of three.

“Sure, there is a risk that you don’t have a defenseman back, but you score more goals. Now, I’m not saying that it is directly attributable [to increased scoring], but it was part of the mix. So what we talked about this year is the forecheck, being just a little bit more aggressive.’’

Begin, a Canadien during Julien’s tour as Montreal’s bench boss, will be counted on to help lead that up-tempo charge. He was hired over the summer as a free agent, ostensibly because veterans P.J. Axelsson and Stephane Yelle couldn’t add the desired bite to the front-end game. Byron Bitz, promoted from Providence later in the season, added great energy and proficient work along the wall, which should make him another prime candidate to add to the aggression game.

“Push the forecheck a little bit,’’ summed up Chiarelli. “But keep in mind, our bread and butter is from the back end out. Claude’s bread and butter in his coaching career has been defense first, so that’s what we are always going to stress. And when that’s in place, all the other stuff is easier to do.’’

In other words, figure Thomas in net for at least another 50 games, if not 60. Ink in Zdeno Chara, fresh from winning his first Norris Trophy, to log 25-30 minutes a night, depending on quality of opposition and numbers on the scoreboard. Big Z should have some of his workload eased by the arrival of free agent Derek Morris. Look for the forwards to be active and supporting their defensemen whenever play is in Boston’s zone.

The Bruins allowed the fewest goals (196) in the NHL last season, a drop of 93 from the squad Julien inherited from Dave Lewis, while scoring 274, second in the league only to the Red Wings. Even if Kessel is gone, it’s a game plan that still centers on back-end defense, and perhaps negates some of the lost Kessel goals by virtue of a ratcheted-up forecheck.

“We are in a different spot now,’’ said Chiarelli, his club no longer stigmatized as a loser but as one of the league’s solid, proficient performers. “We are going to be challenged more, so you have to think differently. That type of thing is going to take place in different things in practice. It’s going to take place in our attitude, in our day-to-day approach. So these guys know and think, ‘This is what we have to do.’ ’’

The first workout is 10 this morning at the Garden. Time to do it.

Show of support for Kelly

Word in Toronto, from HQ of the JSNPA, is that Kelly’s severance package has yet to be finalized. It’s a good bet that the longer they stall, the more it will gouge their wallets, given the growing amount of poor publicity the union is receiving throughout Canada and the United States.

In the days since the abrupt termination, which Boston defenseman Andrew Ference delivered to Kelly in the middle of the night at a Chicago hotel, respected voices such as Bobby Orr, Ted Lindsay, and Bill Guerin have supported Kelly and brought into question the PA’s methods, intentions, and sanity.

Orr to ESPN: “I don’t understand why they did it. I just hope they move on and don’t attack his character because he’s one of the most honorable men I know. His integrity cannot and should not be questioned. He didn’t deserve what happened to him.’’

Guerin to the National Post in Canada: “Paul has been done a huge injustice here. Maybe I am not educated enough on the situation, but I think there are people out there with ulterior motives that wanted Paul out. That’s what I was led to believe with my information.’’

Thursday night in Toronto, Gordie Howe and Lindsay coaxed Kelly into attending an NHL Players Alumni dinner in Toronto, where a banquet room full of retirees treated him to a protracted and boisterous standing ovation. These are guys with a memory, recalling that it was Kelly, in his days as a Boston-based prosecutor, who finally exposed the evil deeds perpetrated against the players by former PA boss Alan Eagleson, sending the Eagle off to the slammer.

All these years later, it seems the players have adopted Eagleson’s calculating and tyrannical approach, shooing Kelly off the watch without just cause.

Leave it to the PA. They had the right guy, and they Just Said No. Again.

Etc.

Kevin Paul Dupont can be reached at dupont@globe.com; material from personal interviews, wire services, other beat writers, and league and team sources was used in this report.