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The mood was light at TD Garden on Thursday night, but the message was far from it as the Bruins scrimmaged against themselves to try to stay fresh for Game 1 on Monday night.
Nobody really cared about the final score -- it wasn't even posted on the Garden HDX -- but Team Black did edge out Team White 5-3, with Patrice Bergeron scoring at the buzzer.
Here are the biggest takeaways from one of the most unique events to take place in Boston in a long time.
How about those fans?
It was reported that 16,000 tickets were sold for Thursday's scrimmage. Seats were $20 and the proceeds went to the Bruins Foundation.
Midway through the first half, it was hard to even find an empty seat.
"It's awesome," said Torey Krug of the fan support. "I was talking to my dad or something and said I hope the fans remember we have one more series to go. They showed up. It was great. Not many other cities around the league would that happen so it was fun to get out there tonight."
Chants of "We want the Cup" and "Let's go Bruins" popped up throughout the night. At one point, B's fans even got the wave going.
"That was something special," said David Pastrnak. "It was awesome. We enjoy it. Hopefully they had some fun. It was a good pregame for them."
Good for the pregame routines
Scrimmaging in practice is one thing, but treating Thursday like a real game day was another.
"Coming to the rink this morning, getting out of bed, doing your morning routine whether that's stretching or getting some treatment, then going home and regrouping back at the rink -- I think it was extremely beneficial," said Krug.
Pastrnak agreed with that sentiment.
"Pretty much all day it's nice to get the gameday routines going and have a good lunch, good nap, and prep like you would for a game day," he said. "It's a good throwback to remember ratios and what you need to do to get ready for the game."
For Krug, the most important part of the scrimmage came with defensive zone practice.
"As far as the on-ice part of it goes, you can't simulate going back and breaking out pucks as a defenseman," he said. "I think that was probably as close as you can get to simulating it. If anyone benefits out there, it's definitely the D for sure."
Injury scare
Everyone at TD Garden gasped when they saw Brad Marchand skate to the bench favoring his left hand and arm. But they let out a deep sigh of relief when he assisted on Pastrnak's goal the next shift.
"Injury risk was our biggest concern tonight," said Bruce Cassidy. "It'll be Saturday when we practice at our normal time and Sunday. You keep your fingers crossed. He's fine. He just bumped into [Connor] Clifton in front of the net and jammed his hand or something."
According to Cassidy, David Krejci arrived at the rink for the scrimmage but was sent home due to a fever.
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