Despite his new situation — which he firmly believes is better for him in the long term — it hasn’t been easy for Connolly to see his old team heading to the Final without him.

TAMPA — On Wednesday night, the Tampa Bay Lightning laced their skates, prepared their minds, and took to the ice at Amalie Arena. Three months ago, Bruins forward Brett Connolly was still one of them. But on Wednesday, instead of playing in his first Stanley Cup Final game, Connolly was in Toronto, spending the afternoon catching the new Entourage movie and the evening watching the game on TV.


“I’m human, like anyone,” Connolly said by phone on Thursday, after the Lightning had gone down, 1-0, in the series to the Blackhawks. “Obviously, everybody dreams of playing the Stanley Cup Final, but I think for myself moving forward, my situation now is better than it was before. So I think moving forward in my career, this is the best thing for me.

“It’s been great being a Boston Bruin for the few months that I have. I’m very excited for next year.”

Still, it stings.

“I feel for him, I really do,” said the Lightning’s Alex Killorn, one of Connolly’s best friends. “I talked to him the other day and I forget [exactly] what he told me, but he said ‘I’m kind of jealous, I wish I was still there’ and stuff like that. I know he’s happy with his situation now, obviously, but whenever you see a team that you just got traded from going to the Stanley Cup Final, it obviously brings up some emotions.”

Even so, Connolly has been following the play of the Lightning, catching all the games he can from afar. These are, after all, his close friends who are four wins away from having their names etched on the Stanley Cup.


It was a group whose chemistry was fostered during the lockout in 2012-13, when Connolly played alongside Tyler Johnson, Ondrej Palat, Mark Barberio, J.T. Brown and Killorn on the AHL’s Syracuse Crunch, among other current members of the team.

“We kind of grew up together, kind of all ended up playing together last year,” Connolly said. “There’s a lot of guys. I’m very close with [Steven Stamkos], we trained together the last four years. So it’s a very close team there. You want them to do well because they’re such close friends.”

Connolly played 50 games this season for the Lightning, and was just settling into a third-line role with the team when he was traded to the Bruins in the early-morning hours of the trade deadline day, March 2. Then, in his second practice with the Bruins, he suffered a displaced fracture in his right index finger when he was hit by a shot from Dennis Seidenberg.

He had surgery and returned before the end of the season, but only played in five games with the Bruins — tallying two assists — before the team was eliminated from playoff contention.

It was not an optimal introduction.

“It was tough — you miss a month and you take the few games to kind of get your timing back. By the time I got my timing back and felt a little better and my finger was feeling a little better, the season was over,” said Connolly, who emphasized that his teammates, the coaching staff, and management helped ease the transition. “So it was kind of a weird situation, but I’m looking forward to next year and having a very good summer and coming in in good shape and working on a few things this summer so I can put my best foot forward and be a go-to guy next year.”


The first step in that process will be getting a new contract. Connolly is a restricted free agent and the sides have not yet begun talking in earnest, according to Connolly’s agent Gerry Johannson. Johannson said he expects to start conversations about Connolly with Bruins general manager Don Sweeney once the combine finishes up this weekend.

For now, Connolly has started training for next season, getting in the gym a couple of weeks ago and on the ice on June 1. He is working out with a group of young players, under the guidance of the Red Wings’ strength and conditioning coach Pete Renzetti, whom he last trained with four years ago. He knows he needs to work on his speed, on getting stronger, on becoming a player worthy of the two second-round picks the Bruins gave up to get the right wing.

“It’s been good to just get situated and just regroup and recharge,” Connolly said. “Obviously, a lot of things happened this year. I’m in a good position so I’m excited, but it was definitely a whirlwind second half after the trade deadline.”


It was a whirlwind that landed him where he is now, interspersing TV with training, a viewer and hockey fan instead of a participant as the Lightning vie for the Stanley Cup.

“I talked to him quickly a couple days ago,” Killorn said. “I feel for him, too. I loved having him around here, he’s a good friend.

“But that’s just the business, the way it is.”

Meanwhile, after all that has happened over the last few months, Connolly is adhering to a new mantra gleaned from the vagaries of a life in hockey.

“Just take it day-by-day,” Connolly said. “I’ve learned that.”

Amalie Benjamin can be reached at abenjamin@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @amaliebenjamin.