from Matt Porter of the Boston Globe,

Will always respect Brind’Amour for training like his Hurricanes (13-2-0) might need him to suit up for depth (uh, no need).

Former Bruin Sergei Samsonov, now in Carolina’s player development wing as a forwards coach, said Brind’Amour, 51, even pushes young bucks such as Andrei Svechnikov with his workouts.

“He’s nuts,” said Samsonov, 43. “He is. He’s probably in the best shape of any guy right now on our team. I played with him for [three] years — it was later in my career — and I’d never seen anybody like that.

“I’m not surprised he’s still doing it, to be honest. I’m surprised his body hasn’t given up. He’s legitimately a freak of nature.

“I’ll tell you one story: We have a test we do every year for our players. If the test is too hard for Roddy, we change the test.”...

One of the bigger surprises of the first month of the NHL season: Anaheim is looking ahead of schedule. The Ducks busted their eight-game winning streak Thursday against the Hurricanes, but entered the weekend 10-5-3.

Rather than being carried by netminder John Gibson, like teams of recent vintage, the Ducks were doing it with offense. They were seventh in goals per game (3.39).

Twenty-four-year-old Denver product Troy Terry, fourth in NHL scoring, has a career high in points (22) through 17 games. Nine of his 12 goals have been assisted by Ryan Getzlaf, still cooking at age 36. The Bruins looked at Getzlaf, who returned to Anaheim for short money ($3 million), as a David Krejci replacement. The longtime captain didn’t really want to leave.

“I didn’t have fun last year,” Getzlaf said this past week.

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