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“I’m really impressed with the way the veterans have integrated the young guys and the new guys (acquired in trades), so it’s a totally new group with a new chemistry and a new story. It’s a blank sheet starting right now and the fans should look at that as something exciting. Right now, they can’t know a lot about this team because it’s just beginning and I think things that are beginning are exciting.”

They all have to be on the same page if they’re going to have any chance of winning.

“The first thing we can’t do is look back,” Boucher said. “But, and there’s always a but, the players were always adamant that, whatever we had to learn, we’ve learned it. It’s not about going back to learn it again. Once you’re done Grade 3, you’re done Grade 3, you’re not going back.

“Whatever you’ve learned will serve you. The door has been totally shut from last year. The things that needed to be dealt with have dealt with and now it’s all about moving forward with the things that we’ve learned and with the new people that are coming in that don’t deserve to be taken back to something they don’t even know about or have even lived.

“As a leader, me as the coach and our players, our No. 1 job is to look forward and know what we want. And we want a team-first attitude, a group that sticks together and know that, through the tough times, we’re not going to stray away from being a team.

“Being a great teammate is huge for us right now and the players have displayed that all the way.”

Boucher is headed into the final year of his contract, but said he wasn’t concerned that he hadn’t been signed to an extension.

“I’ve had that before and I won a championship,” Boucher said. “Ask Barry Trotz how he liked his year (in Washington)? I don’t do things in life for money, I never have. I don’t do things for contracts. I do things because I like being there and I want to do them.

“I put my name at the bottom of that contract for three years and that’s what I plan to do and to do it well, and that’s exactly what’s happening.”

bgarrioch@postmedia.com

Twitter.com/sungarrioch