When the Bruins hit the ice Saturday night for Game 1 of their second-round series against the Islanders, they’ll be doing so in front of a TD Garden crowd that will be “near full capacity” for the first time in nearly 15 months.
After playing in front of no fans in the Toronto bubble last postseason and no fans for the first two months of this season, the Bruins first welcomed fans back at 12 percent capacity on March 25. They were then able to increase to 25 percent for the final regular-season game and the first round of the playoffs.
Now, with Massachusetts lifting all COVID restrictions on Saturday, the Garden will be close to 100 percent full going forward. Needless to say, the Bruins are excited about it.
“It’ll be awesome. I think everybody’s super excited about that,” Tuukka Rask said on The Greg Hill Show Friday morning. “Obviously we had some fans in the previous round, and you can really notice the difference even then. It felt like it was half full, but obviously if it’s going to an almost full house, it’s going to be loud and something that we haven’t seen in over a year. Everybody’s going to be really pumped up. Hopefully it doesn’t make us nervous. Hopefully it just gives us energy in the right way and we can feed off that.”
“Really excited. Looking forward to it,” Patrice Bergeron said. “It’s been a while. I’ve said this before: I think from the bubble to the start of this season, you adapt and you adjust to not having fans. In a way, you almost forget how special it is to have them. So when we went up to 12 percent and then 25, it makes such a big difference -- the impact they have on the game, the energy you try to feed off, is amazing. So having close to a packed Garden tomorrow is going to be special.”
Coach Bruce Cassidy said he thinks it’s going to be good not just for the Bruins, but for the game as a whole and for sports in general as more and teams and cities increase attendance across the country.
“There is some anticipation. It’s been a long time, so you kind of forget what it’s like,” Cassidy said. “I thought it was getting loud here with 25 percent capacity, so I can only imagine a full house. It’ll be nice to have everyone back in there. It’ll be good for all sports to get back to your typical home-ice advantage in terms of the crowd being behind you, creating energy. All that is going to be great. Like I said, it’s been a long time.
“It’s probably going to be a little shocking at first, to be honest with you. You’re just so used to quietness throughout the games, so it’ll be a good thing for everybody, in any building, I think for both teams. Crowds obviously are there for the home team, but I think they can also get the visiting team into it. I think it’s just good for the game, period.”
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On the injury front, Cassidy said they’ll make a decision on Jeremy Lauzon’s Game 1 availability on Saturday. The defenseman suffered a hand injury in Game 1 of the first round and missed the rest of the series. He returned to practice this week and was cleared for contact on Thursday.
Cassidy said Kevan Miller was back in the facility again on Friday, riding the stationary bike, but that he has not been cleared to return to the ice yet after suffering an upper-body injury in Game 4 against the Capitals. Miller is out for at least Game 1.
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