Wheeler wants to contribute before it's too late.

Blake Wheeler has exceeded expectations with his play this past season. Based on his play in college not many expected Wheeler to make the NHL right out of training camp. I don’t think many people in their wildest dreams expected that Blake Wheeler would play in 81 games and record (21-24-45) add to the fact that he was a plus 36. Scoring 20 goals as a rookie in the NHL is nothing to sneeze at and I think some expected that play to carry over to the Stanley Cup playoffs, that has not happened to date and the Bruins are on the verge of being usurped from the playoffs. I think as a rookie Wheeler has hit the wall but that happens to rookies in the NHL.

In defense of Wheeler he isn’t the only one that isn’t producing; some key players for the Bruins have also failed to show up as well, Mark Recci (1-2-3), Patrice Bergeron (0-2-2), if the Bruins are to come back in this series they are going to need more balanced scoring and I haven’t seen any evidence of that happening so far.

There have been better times during his rookie NHL season for Boston Bruins winger Blake Wheeler.

Among the league’s top rookie scorers and overall leaders in plus/minus all season while skating for one of the top teams in the overall standings during the 2008-09 regular season, Wheeler suddenly finds himself with a goose egg on the stats sheet for a team on the verge of getting eliminated in the second round.

But he continues to flaunt maturity beyond his years even with the Bruins down 3-1 heading into tomorrow night’s Game 5 of their Eastern Conference semifinal series with Carolina.

“There’s two sides of any sport. Any time adversity comes, you have to react in a positive way and let it make you a better player and a better person,” he told TheBruinsBlog.net today after what might have been the Bruins’ last practice of the season in Wilmington, Mass. “You can’t feel sorry for yourself, you can’t walk around with your tail between your legs, you have to kind of embrace it, learn from it and just try to get better from it. And when you come out of it, you feel a lot better about yourself.
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