Ryan Spooner: Listening To Claude Julien Made Me Better
The Boston Bruins snagged center Ryan Spooner in the second round (45th overall) of the 2010 NHL Entry Draft. In the last few seasons Spooner found himself bouncing back and forth between the Providence and Boston clubs. In the last two seasons, he was really starting to show the big club what he could offer as a bottom six-forward. Spooner would burn bright one game, and then be ice-cold the next. It certainly sapped into Spooner’s confidence and earned the ire of Claude Julien.
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Spooner came on with the Bruins early last season trying to get a more permanent spot on the roster. But Spooner had good games and bad games, and even received a rare public tounge lashing from the Bruins head coach. Spooner was sent back down to Providence, and he languished in the AHL until B’s top line center David Krejci was injured in February.
Spooner took that opportunity and ran with it. By the end of the Bruins season, he was a top-six forward skating along side Milan Lucic and fellow Providence call-up David Pastrnak. Spooner and Pastrnak were able to help the veteran Lucic find that top gear that had been eluding him for most of the season.
Ryan Spooner sat down with Scouting Post’s Kirk Luedeke and took the opportunity to thank Julien for making him into a player that now has earned a permanent spot on the Bruins roster. (He’s currently listed as third on the Bruins depth chart behind Krejci and Patrice Bergeron. All in all, that’s some rather elite company to be in.)
“At the beginning of the year, I think he expected a lot more of me,” said Spooner of his rough start last season in Boston. “I don’t think I was playing up to how I should have been and at the end of the day, he’s going to tell me what things he thinks I should be doing better. I think he just wants me to be the best player I can be and that’s why he called me out. In the long run it helped me; I think at the time I felt he was being a little hard on me, but now that I look back on it, he was trying to help and make me a better player and I’m grateful that he did that.
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“In terms of the beginning of the year he was good with me and told me ‘We want you to use your speed and your skill, we want you to be a good two-way player. As long as you do that, I have no issues with you creating offense,’ so that’s what my coaches say to me- as long as I am good in my own end you can go out and make the plays you make, just make sure that you’re responsible.
While Spooner’s three-zone, two-way game certainly improved over the course of last season, the 23-yr old is now focusing on the extras that will make him more of a standout player.
“In terms of next year coming up I want[to]stress getting better at the faceoff dot; trying to work on that and maybe even start a faceoff in my own zone, which I didn’t do a lot of. I know that it takes time as a young guy, and we have some of the best faceoff guys in the league, and he’s going to use them, but I’m striving towards being trusted in situations like that and it’s giving me something to work towards.”
Spooner finished out last season with eighteen points(eight goals) in twenty-nine games. He brought some speed back to the Bruins offense, and found great chemistry with Pastrnak. He’s finally coming into his own in Boston, and should have a great season with the B’s come October.