BostonBruins.com – The Boston Bruins will have the summer to reflect on the 2011-12 season and their first-round exit to the Washington Capitals, which all followed after an arduous Stanley Cup championship run in 2011.

Peverley

But for Boston Bruins forward Rich Peverley (and undoubtedly the rest of the team), he’d rather be playing.

“I don’t really look at it that way,” Peverley said when asked if the longer offseason will be beneficial for the team. “Guys can have a long off-season and say it’s good for rest and it’s good for everything, but you always learn a lot from the experiences when you go deep in the playoffs.

“That’s the way I look at it. You always get better if you’re playing longer. So I kind of look at it as a lost opportunity to get better as a team and as an individual.”

As the Bruins struggled to get their offense going against the Capitals, Peverley was a bright spot in the lineup.

The 29-year-old forward finished with three goals and two assists to lead the team with five points. But Peverley acknowledged that in the broad scheme of things, the individual accomplishments pale in comparison to the importance of the team results.

“I think I played okay, but people can always be better,” Peverley said. “Especially that Game 7, I don’t think everybody brought their best game.

“But you’ve got to hand it to [Washington] – you’ve got to give them credit. They played well and they played well around their goaltender [Braden Holtby]. So at the end of the day, they were the ones that moved forward.”

Now, the Capitals fight for a shot at the Stanley Cup while the Bruins land in the record books as the 12th straight champion unable to successfully defend the title the next season.

“You look at the fact that it hasn’t been repeated in quite a long time, so I guess you can kind of look at that,” Peverley said. “But I think it’s more of an excuse I think.

“We didn’t play our best and you’ve got to play your best. We’ve got to get breaks too, so I guess you can kind of look at it that way.”

Now, all that’s left is a hard lesson learned.

“A lot of thinking about lost opportunity,” Peverley said. “That’s the way I’m looking at it. We had a really good opportunity in my opinion to go far and even have a chance. So it’s very unfortunate, and I guess you learn from these events.”