Bruins defenseman Brandon Carlo, spent the week with his family in Colorado Springs.
"It was good energy out there. I felt like the guys were flying around," said Carlo. "Obviously we have some heavy legs from the plane, but I felt like those kind of disappeared right away, and there was a lot of high energy out there."
Before the players hit the ice, they all reunited.
"The guys all got together - some of them met us out there, and they were hugging in the room, and you see it on the ice," smiled Interim Head Coach Bruce Cassidy. "They're hockey players, they want to play and then left in a good frame of mind when we broke up on Sunday night, so they want to get back at it, as well as I do, and see where we're at."
The Bruins started practice by playing some shinny hockey, before moving into fast-paced drills, and three-on-three work between the bluelines towards the end so that the players could work in small areas.
"[Over the break], we had a chance to relax a little bit, enjoy ourselves, and spend more time with our families," said Captain Zdeno Chara. "Everybody chose to spend in the way they wanted, and we came back, and it was a high tempo, high-paced, energy practice where we had a lot of drills that involved all five guys skating and handling the puck, and just reacting, and getting ready for [Sunday]."
The Black & Gold will be back in action on Sunday at the SAP Center against the San Jose Sharks (5:30 p.m. local time/8:30 EST - NBCSN, 98.5 The Sports Hub), when they kick off a four-game road trip out West.
"Generally, you're going to be rusty, and it's usually your hands, and puck management's going to be key," said Cassidy.
"You hope you'll defend fine and you'll have the energy to do that, but your hands might leave you a little bit and be a little rusty behind the play and you'll make some mistakes with the puck, so we'll guard against that - you guard against that every night, but it will be especially important coming back off the break."
While the Bruins are coming off the bye week, the Sharks will be coming off a game against the Coyotes in Arizona on Saturday.
From what Cassidy's seen, visiting teams getting back into action after bye weeks have generally had the upper-hand. He and the Bruins are hoping that will be the case on Sunday.
"We all got some pretty good rest over the week and mentally we've just got to get right back in it," said Carlo. "[Sunday's] going to be a good preparation day, where we're just going to focus on the game all day. I feel like we're going to do well. I feel like everything's going to go fine, as long as we just take that approach that we're back in hockey mode."
