The game of hockey is cyclical, as Bruins coach Jim Montgomery pointed out this week.

Coming out of the 2004-05 lockout, teams tried to get skilled and faster to take advantage of the new rule changes that opened up the game. But the big and brawny 2007 Stanley Cup winning Anaheim Ducks swung the pendulum the other way, leading eventually to the 21st century version of the Big, Bad Bruins winning the Cup in 2011.

The Chicago Blackhawks and Pittsburgh Penguins swung it back the other way with multiple championships each.

But big and bad is back, as evidenced as the Florida Panthers’ back-to-back runs to the Stanley Cup finals, winning the chalice last June as they leaned on a general relentless that suffocated their opponents.

The Bruins, bounced both years by the Panthers, have gotten the message. With several new additions, the B’s now have 13 players who are 6-foot-3 or taller. The biggest of the bunch is 6-foot-6, 248-pound Nikita Zadorov, who brings not just size, but a swagger and a touch of the nasty that Montgomery believes should pay huge dividends.

“I just think it creates a little more space, a little more time without the puck. What mean with ‘without the puck’ is people know when he’s on the ice, so they get rid of it a little bit quicker,” said Montgomery. “Having watched a lot of tape of him, especially in the playoffs last year, not only does he embrace that role, but I think he relishes it. And it’s something I think that will behoove our team. And not only him, but we have a lot of other players like (Mark) Kastelic and (Max) Jones that come to my mind right away who are big, heavy hitters.”

The “smallest” member of the D corps is Charlie McAvoy, who is 6-foot-1, 210 pounds and is one of the more ferocious hitters in the league. And while the B’s have size on the back end, there isn’t a single classic plodder in the group. All of them can get around the ice.

“Look at our D corps. There are a lot of horses there,” said Zadorov. “So it’s exciting. I’ve been playing the west for the past nine years and the west has always been big and physical and strong. And now I think the east is trending that way as well. You look at the Panthers, or you look at any team in the Atlantic Division, they’re big and hard to play against. “

The locker room leader is also the most diminutive, 5-foot-9 Brad Marchand. But the captain, a rookie on that 2011 team, appreciates what size can do for a team. It may take some time for things to come together and a cohesion to set in, but the newfound heft in the lineup should pay off when the games matter most.

“You see it at playoff time, when you have bigger, hard teams, kind of the way Florida was last year, it’s really hard to play against that for four rounds, seven games,” said Marchand. “You just can lean on guys and they cover more space. You can push guys out of series with how big and physical guys are, so it’s great with the additions we’ve made. They’re big but they can skate and can make plays. They’re tough, so I really love the additions that we’ve made this year and it should definitely help us. Now, we’ve got a lot of new bodies so there’s a period of time that you need to find a way to come together. That happened to us last year. We started to play one way to start the season and we were winning games but we weren’t playing great hockey, so we had to change our systems to more fit our team. And because of that, the second half of the year, we were a much better group. There could be a period of time where we need to adjust to different things and find different line combinations and different D pairs, but we’ll get there and it’ll be an exciting work in progress.”

Zadorov, Elias Lindholm, Kastelic and Jones represent a large influx of bodies, and there could be another new face in the locker room should one of the prospects like Fabian Lysell take the open wing spot on the roster.

This will be Zadorov’s sixth NHL team (Buffalo, Colorado, Chicago, Calgary and Vancouver were his previous stops) and he has a pretty good idea of how a team needs to come together to have success.

“Everyone’s got to buy in. You’ve got to embrace your role,” said Zadorov. “Everyone’s role is different. There are different skill sets among the guys. At the end of the day, the best teams and the deepest runs I’ve had is when you feel like a family inside. And so far, it’s been just a warm welcome for me and for (Elias Lindholm), I spoke to him as well. The guys have been great, the leaders on this team and everyone in this organization has helped me to go so smoothly through this transition. I love what I’ve seen so far and I can’t wait to get going.”

Training camp will be important for jelling, but on October 8 the B’s will open up in Sunrise, Florida against the champion Panthers. Zadorov knows their personnel well. He lives in south Florida in the offseason and skates at the Panthers’ facility with many of the team’s players.

“We’re friends off the ice,” said Zadorov with a grin, “but we’re not going to be friends on the ice.”….

The Bruin hopefuls dropped the opening game of the Prospects Challenge in Buffalo, losing 6-3 to the Penguins. The B’s had a 3-1 first period lead but the Penguins scored the next five goals with their prized prospect Rutger McGroarty scoring a goal and making his presence felt. The Bruin highlight was a terrific cross-ice backhand pass from Brett Harrison to John Farinacci, who roofed a goal…

Ryan Johnston has been named the new Bruins radio play-by-play announcer on 98.5 The Sports Hub. The long-time host of the Hockey Show on Saturday mornings, Johnston is a familiar voice with B’s fans and he also has an extensive play-by-play experience in the NCAA and AHL.