Chiarelli: Bruins 'not standing still'

Bruins general manager Peter Chiarelli assured fans and followers of the team that he is paying close attention to what chief rivals in the Eastern Conference are doing to get better. During the press conference at TD Garden Tuesday to announce the contract extension for coach Claude Julien, Chiarelli said he's not "ignoring" the moves by the Rangers and Flyers to address their needs. 

Specficially, the Rangers acquired star forward Rick Nash from Columbus in a trade on Monday.

"He's a real good player, very good goal-scorer, big strong player," Chiarelli said. "I don't really want to get into details as far as our negotiations and discussions with Columbus. The fact that the Rangers got him, I think it's going to help their team. They're obviously in our conference and we play them more than we would play a team in the Western Conference."

Meanwhile the Flyers have a 14-year, $100 million offer sheet on the table to Nashville defenseman Shea Weber to address their pourous defense from last season, although the Predators have said that they will match it.

"We're going to continue to improve," Chiarelli said. "I don't want it to be misconstrued by just keeping the core intact that we're just standing pat here. When rivals make moves like that, when Philly has the offer sheet on Weber, I don't lose sight of that stuff, knowing these are good teams getting better. Our foundation, our team right now is quite good. 

"We've got some things that we may do at a later point. We may wait into the season. We're not standing still. The Weber thing, the Nash thing, those things we don't ignore. We don't react right away but we don't ignore."

"The one thing you try to do as a coach is keep things fresh," Julien added. "Every year you try to attack certain areas that will maybe change just a little bit that will give guys a fresher look. That's how you keep your team interested, intact and hopefully competitive."

For complete coverage of Tuesday's event at the Garden from DJ Bean and Mike Petraglia, visit the Bruins team page at weei.com/bruins [1] and the Big Bad Blog [2].