Pellerin happy to be back at home New Bruin comfortable with ‘different’ situation

WILMINGTON, Mass. – A 30-mile drive anywhere in the Boston area can mean a logjam of a commute to work. But it’s a drive Scott Pellerin won’t mind making.

Pellerin, the 31-year-old former University of Maine hockey star who signed a two-year contract with the Boston Bruins this summer, is finally able to live at his New Hampshire home after nine years of playing for teams in New Jersey, New York, St. Louis, Minnesota and North Carolina.

“Usually I leave to go away to a different camp or I live in a different city,” he said. “To live in our home in the hockey season is going to be a little bit different. It’s a good kind of different.”

Pellerin is also at home in other ways, he said after a recent morning practice at Ristuccia Arena, where the Bruins train.

Pellerin, who was UMaine’s first Hobey Baker Award winner (1992), given to college hockey’s top player, has played under coach Robbie Ftorek, who is also new to the Bruins. And Pellerin is back to a more familiar defensive role compared to his responsibilities in the past.

There will be challenges, too. The left winger may end up playing some center as Jason Allison’s contract situation is still uncertain, and Pellerin is joining a squad that is much improved but hasn’t been to the playoffs in two years.

Pellerin has already had an impact in the first week of the season – one goal and two assists in Boston’s first four games. The Bruins (3-1) play their next game Saturday at San Jose, Calif.

Last season Pellerin tallied 11 goals and 28 assists in 58 games with the Minnesota Wild, who traded him to the Carolina Hurricanes in March. This year Pellerin may not be asked to carry as much of the offense – a move that the left winger likes.

“I’ll probably have more of a checking role,” he said. “[In Minnesota] I was put in a different situation. I haven’t played like that in a long time and I enjoyed it. [In Boston] I’m trying to go back to my strength, trying to play good positional and defensive hockey, and do that and trying to do it well. I’ll probably kill some penalties.”

Pellerin may not stay solely in a winger role, however.

Allison, the all-star center who led the Bruins with 95 points last year, has been holding out over contract issues. Pellerin started the season as a winger, but he has been preparing for the possibility of playing center.

“Obviously there are different responsibilities and you try and round yourself as a hockey player to be prepared to play in those situations,” Pellerin said. “I’m watching other centers on this team, guys like [Boston’s] Brian Rolston and other centers on other teams, watching their tendencies and trying to make that adjustment.”

If he does have to switch over to center at least, Pellerin said, he has a coach who knows him and his abilities. Ftorek coached Pellerin when he played for the American Hockey League’s Albany River Rats in the mid-1990s.

“He kind of knows what type of player I am,” Pellerin said. “I think some guys are still going through that process but he knows what I can bring to the table, what I can do for the team.”

The Bruins are hoping the changes they made in the off-season – bringing in Ftorek, signing Pellerin, left wing Martin Lapointe, defenseman Sean O’Donnell and center Rob Zamuner – will boost the team to the playoffs for the first time since the 1998-99 season. Pellerin, meanwhile, has played in the postseason five straight years.

Pellerin believes Boston has improved enough to make a run at the playoffs. And after longtime Bruin Ray Bourque won a Stanley Cup with the Colorado Avalanche last year, he said the Bruins have even more inspiration.

“Watching Ray Bourque lift the Stanley Cup … what a feeling it would be to do that,” Pellerin said. “That’s what everybody works for. It sounds like a typical clich? but now we just have to take one game at a time and work towards making the playoffs.”

But most of all – more than the excitement of playing with a new, revamped team, the move to more of a checking role, returning to a familiar coach – that 30-mile drive is looking pretty good no matter how crowded the traffic gets.

Playing in Boston means the Shediac, New Brunswick, native will see his parents at more games. Pellerin’s wife, Jennifer, is from New Hampshire and has a lot of family in the area. And Pellerin will be at home with daughter Jordan, 2, and son Jacob, 3 months.

“I live in my house with my two little kids,” he said with a smile. “It’s a good adjustment and we’re really excited about it. We have a lot of family in the area and it’s gonna be close for my parents to come down. I think it’s a good fit.”