MIDDLETON – Last year, Bruins forward Shawn Thornton was joined by teammates Tuukka Rask and Milan Lucic at the Ferncroft country club in Middleton as he held the first annual “Putts and Punches for Parkinson’s” golf tournament. This year, none of Thornton’s teammates were anywhere to be seen, as neither Lucic nor Rask are back in Boston yet. In a shortened offseason (about two and a half months when considering many didn’t leave Boston until late June), the players haven’t started to trickle back into Massachusetts, and they aren’t even set to have ice made available in Wilmington until the second week of September. 

“It's a good thing,” Thornton said with a smile Monday. “It means you won. You can't bitch and complain about it.”

The complaints are minimal around the Bruins, but so too are the hours. From all the Cup-related hoopla, including each player’s day with the Cup, to getting the much-needed rest after the season, to preparing for the coming season, this is a different offseason than the Bruins are used to. He has been through the post-championship offseason after winning it in Anaheim, but the circumstances are different this time around. 

Thornton didn’t return to the team with which he first won the Cup, and noted Monday that he feels the Bruins are better off on paper than the Ducks were following the 2006-07 season. Now defending the Cup for the first time in his career, he hopes that coming off a career year (10 goals, 10 assists), he will perform better than he did when he came off the 2007 win. In that season, his first with the Bruins, Thornton totaled seven points in 58 games.

“I know my first year here in Boston, I didn’t have the best start, and part of it was I was still in the Stanley Cup hangover,” Thornton admitted Monday. “At least I’ve been through that before. It will help me personally and hopefully I can try and relay that to the other guys.” 

For the 34-year-old, he hopes it isn’t a message that really needs to be relayed, as he doesn’t feel players are looking to dog it this offseason just because they won. Still, the offseason is a different animal when it’s cut down by a month compared to what the players are used to. For that reason, Thornton thinks players need to be smart in ramping things up at the right time, but not try to push three and a half months worth of preparation into two and a half months.

“It's a tough balance getting enough rest needed to let your body heal and being able to get back into shape,” Thornton said. “I don't know for sure, but I'm assuming at the start of camp I think it won't be as important to be at 110, instead being ready for October 5, 6, whenever the first game is.

“It's tough, in the same way you get [obsessive] a little when it comes to training. It's hard to tell yourself that you don't need to be ready for September and that it's more [about] October. I know in June I wanted to be doing things I'm usually doing in June. You just can't, because we'd just finished. I think mentally it's a little bit more difficult. Other than that, knowing my teammates, I'm pretty sure everyone's staying in good shape. There's no lazy guys on our team, so I'm not worried about everyone taking too much time off.”

So far, Thornton has mixed working out with taking time off, while still putting his time into boxing, his weapon of choice when it comes to training.

“Personally, I ramped it up probably July 1,” Thornton said. “I took until about July 1. I worked out a little bit the last week in June and then I was back at it July 1, went four hard weeks and then the last week I took off and then [will be] back at it hard this week, straight through until Labor Day.”

The B’s will get back to work, voluntarily, shortly after. Thornton said they’ll have ice available to them for captain’s practices around the eighth of September (Labor Day is the fifth). The majority of the Bruins attended captain’s practices from the onset last year, with Thornton among the many to go from the beginning. It will be interesting to see if those numbers are similar to last year, or if the skates become lighter or shorter.

HOLLYWOOD ISN’T CALLING

Thornton, as well as teammates Andrew Ference and Brad Marchand were at the Bruins’ Stanley Cup DVD premiere in Boston last month, and though the players ducked about 10 minutes early, Thornton said he liked what he saw of the DVD.

One thing he touched on, which has to be the elephant in the room when watching it, is how the Bruins looked in their individual interviews during the DVD. Shot in the days following the Cup win, many of the Bruins look exactly how one would expect them to look after celebrating the biggest win of their lives. Some have hoarse voices, while others look plain old exhausted. 

“I liked it. It turned out well. We all looked a little rough I think in our individuals, but that was to be expected I guess,” Thornton said with a laugh. “The way they filmed that, the light was right in your face in the dark room. It was tough to concentrate; I'm not going to lie to you. I think all in all, they did a pretty good job with it, and I think it's pretty much what you'd expect.”

LIKING THE LOOKS OF THINGS

The Bruins' roster won't look much different than the one that won the Cup as the B's go about defending the coveted trophy. With Joe Corvo and Benoit Pouliot the two sure-fire newcomers (replacing Tomas Kaberle and Michael Ryder, respectively) and perhaps a young forward set to replace the retired Mark Recchi, Thornton likes the B's chances in 2011-12.

"I think management's done a good job of being able to put themselves in a position to be able to keep everybody. Obviously we're going to be miss Recchi's leadership, we're going to miss Rydes and Kaba, even though everyone game Kaba a hard time I thought he did his job for us. He's a very solid player and he has been for a lot of years," Thornton said. "We will miss those guys, but they brought in Corvo to try to fill that void, and I've played against him enough to know what he brings to the table. I think they've done a really good job and we've definitely set ourselves up to be successful again if everyone's on the same page."

One thing that figures to remain the same is the B's fourth line. Thornton, Gregory Campbell, Marchand and, after Marchand was promoted to the second line, Daniel Paille, provided a strong backbone for the Bruins throughout the season and the team's playoff run. The line with Paille played a major role in the first period of Game 7 of the Cup finals, swinging the momentum in the Bruins' favor after the Canucks came out harder and stronger than the B's at Rogers Arena.