David Pastrnak makes his debut at Bruins camp Wednesday

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BRIGHTON, Mass. — The Bruins are close to getting the Black and Gold band back together.

David Pastrnak made his first appearance in Return to Play camp on Wednesday morning at Warrior Ice Arena with a smaller group of young guys, which leaves Ondrej Kase and Trent Frederic as the only players that have yet to suit up for practice three days into the proceedings.

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Pastrnak just finished up his mandatory quarantine period after traveling over from the Czech Republic and Kase has been doing the same thing while the Bruins get ready for the next few months of hockey. The expectation is that the B’s will have their full group of players on Thursday and skate for a couple of days before everybody has an off-day from camp on Sunday.

Anders Bjork has done a fine job filling in on the right side with Patrice Bergeron and Brad Marchand over the last couple of days, but one would expect No. 88 to be on his rightful place on the Perfection Line starting on Thursday.

The good news is that it appears just about everybody came into this camp in tip-top shape and the Bruins have been able to run quick-paced practices while getting into a pretty relaxed flow of things even with the COVID-19 circumstances making it a highly unusual and risky situation.

“Our medical and strength guys said that after a couple of days that it would be a wise thing to do,” said Bruce Cassidy, of the core veterans getting a day off in the middle of the week. “I’ve been saying all along that I thought the recovery part would be important because I thought our guys would stay in shape, and sure enough [we were] right.

I think this has been fine. We’re back to work, we’re back in the building and we’re back around people we enjoy being around doing what we enjoy doing. So far it’s been fine. There are some protocols you’re not used to. We’re all wearing masks when we’re in the hallways even though we’ve all tested negative. I think that’s just an everyday walk of life now.

"I think the real test over the next 10-12 days is when you leave the building and who you’re going to be around. Then once you get into the bubble preparing that you’re going to be there for a length of time if you have some success. Right now I think guys are enjoying it, to be honest with you. We’re behaving differently in our day-to-day routine, but we’re on the ice, working, and playing hockey doing what we love to do. Those things supersede all of the little things we need to be mindful of [during the pandemic].”

Here are the Bruins players skating Wednesday aside from Pastrnak: Jack Studnicka, Connor Clifton, Nick Ritchie, Jakub Zboril, Anton Blidh, Zach Senyshyn, Urho Vaakanainen, Paul Carey, Daniel Vladar and Maxime Lagace.

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