When the defending Stanley Cup champions bring back nearly the exact same roster for the next season, training camp isn’t exactly full of position battles. 

One spot that is up for grabs has resulted in an interesting competition. The Bruins have three pairings worth of starting blueliners in Zdeno Chara, Dennis Seidenberg, Andrew Ference, Johnny Boychuk, Adam McQuaid and Joe Corvo. The only question at the position is who will make the team as the seventh defensemen.

Steven Kampfer and Matt Bartkowski are both making strong cases in what has become a close competition to fill the role McQuaid and Kampfer split last season. 

Kampfer and Bartkowski were roommates last year in Providence, but they never discussed an eventual battle for a job in Boston. According to both players, the elephant in the room was worth ignoring. 

“We kind of knew it,” Bartkowski said Wednesday with a laugh. “It was bound to happen. It was probably understood, but we never really talked about it.”

Kampfer, who certainly has the edge if NHL experience, agreed it wasn’t worth talking about then and still isn’t now. The two have been able to maintain their friendship despite the fact that one will be the reason the other ends up having a new roommate in Providence this year. 

“We don't talk about hockey away from the rink,” Kampfer said. “It's one of those things where, we know that it's going to come down to us two. We try to stay away from talking about it.

Last year, Bartkowski outlasted Kampfer in training camp and ended up the last player cut from camp, though it seemed a longshot at the time that the rookie would end up actually making the team. Even so, lasting as far into camp as he did earned him a trip overseas, as he was in Belfast and Prague to wind down the preseason and begin the regular season. By Oct. 9, he was a spectator, but he remembered his first camp with the Bruins as extremely positive. 

“It was very valuable,” Bartkowski said. “I got to make a lot of good relationships with players and staff and stuff like that. They got to know me a little bit better, I got to know them.”

With both players in their second camp with the Bruins, it’s all about avoiding a trip down I-95.  

“Last year, I don't really think I had an expectation to stay,” Kampfer said. “I just came in and tried to earn a spot. Now, with playing half a season up here and being here for three quarters of the year, you know what it takes to be here and you've just got to work to get better every day.”

Both players present solid cases. Kampfer has more experience playing with the Bruins, seeing action in 38 games last season. The Michigan product stepped in for an injured Mark Stuart at defenseman and wasn't brought along slowly. By his third game, he was playing 20 minutes, something he did nine times last season (he had 15 games with more than 19 minutes).

Kampfer said being thrown into the fire helped him get a feel for things quickly. He had a stretch of three goals over five games in late December into January, and by the time Stuart was ready to return, the Bruins weren’t ready to change things up.

“The coaching staff and the guys on this team definitely helped out tremendously in getting me ready and letting me play my game,” Kampfer said. “They never really had any restrictions on how I played, so it's just the same way.”

Bartkowski played six games with the B’s last year, and was underwhelming in limited action. He’s bigger than the better-skating Kampfer and is a left-handed shot, while Kampfer is right-handed. 

This has left the team with a tricky decision, and one that will need to be made by next Wednesday. 

“It's tough,” Claude Julien said after Wednesday’s practice. “Right now, there's a couple of guys that are there that are pretty even and each bring a certain element that we like, so now it's a matter of them battling for that spot. It's pretty obvious that both those guys were on our radar last year. Either they were call-ups or they were here for part of the season and again it's that same battle that happened last year.”

Whichever player does stick will have the support of the other. What the two look forward to is the day they can both stick in Boston rather than battling each other.

“We're friends away from the rink and both hope each other does well,” Kampfer said. “Hopefully one day we're both on the same team up here.”