from Fluto Shinzawa of the Boston Globe,

Adam McQuaid plays best when he’s angry. When he feels a teammate has been slighted, McQuaid turns into the Hulk.

But as soon as the final buzzer sounds, McQuaid’s blood plummets from full boil to room temperature. Even after a high-intensity affair, the Bruins defenseman can usually count on a good sleep when he retires to his home or hotel room.

“It can be hit or miss sometimes,” McQuaid said between back-to-back games earlier this year against Florida and Carolina. “But we got in relatively late last night. So it was pretty easy to wind down. Probably got about 7½ hours. Not bad.”

It is easier said than done to shut off the postgame adrenaline. But there are few things more important than winding down promptly and rebooting for the next game, especially this year because of the compressed schedule. A player’s performance for one game depends greatly on how he recovers from the previous match.

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