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Peter Chiarelli looking forward to competitive Bruins camp

Johnny Boychuk is among a group of nine defensemen who are realistically in the running to make the Bruins.ELISE AMENDOLA/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Earlier this week, general manager Peter Chiarelli acknowledged that he would need to trade a defenseman before the start of the season. But the message was slightly different on Thursday as the Bruins gathered for fitness testing ahead of the start of training camp.

“I’ve said that I’m looking to trade a defenseman, but I’m very eager to see the competition,” Chiarelli said. “There are spots. There are no restrictions. If I have to open with eight D, I can.

“So there’s no real pressing need to do it other than it’s not ideal. The way I count now is that there’s four forward spots open for filling and there’s obviously more than nine defensemen — I’ve been saying nine, [but] not counting Torey [Krug] there’s eight. For seven spots ideally, but I could carry eight.”

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The Bruins generally carry seven defensemen but apparently would consider having eight at the NHL level. Of course, that doesn’t take into account the need for a trade to open up cap space to sign Krug and fellow camp holdout Reilly Smith.

Either way, Chiarelli is looking forward to a camp in which there’s more competition than in years past. That’s on defense, where the Bruins will have to make decisions among the group of Zdeno Chara, Dougie Hamilton, Johnny Boychuk, Dennis Seidenberg, Matt Bartkowski, Adam McQuaid, Krug, Kevan Miller, and David Warsofsky, but also up front.

“The competition, with it comes uncertainty and we’d all like things to be certain, but also the cream will rise to the top and I’m looking forward to it,” Chiarelli said. “On a smaller level, we had the competition last year, a couple of forward spots, and we did OK.

“We’ve got some invites, we’ve got some young players pushing, I look forward to it.”

So do the players, even ones that could be on the trade block, such as Boychuk.

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“We have so many good defensemen that you have to be on your A-game or else somebody could take your spot,” Boychuk said. “You have to be prepared to work your behind off. So, it’s going to be fun. It’s always a healthy competition in training camp, even for forwards there’s some spots. It’s going to be fun to watch and it’s going to be a good competitive camp.”

They have their limits

A few players will be limited when on-ice workouts begin Friday. Milan Lucic is still recovering from his offseason wrist surgery, and Gregory Campbell has a “minor mid-core” issue, according to Chiarelli. Linus Arnesson continues to deal with a groin injury that kept him out of the final two periods of the last game of the rookie tournament . . . There were words of caution from Chiarelli on first-round pick David Pastrnak. “Let’s keep in mind on this player, he’s still young and he’s light and you worry with a player of this age and size — there’s some players obviously that seem to play and are durable — that he could get hurt,” Chiarelli said. “He’s a very smart player, very good vision, and you just have to be careful, and we’re taking it slowly and we’ll see where it goes.” . . . Chara reported that he did 35 pull-ups in fitness testing. He also reported that Miller, who tied Chara for the most with 31 last year, only did 33 . . . Chiarelli said invitees Simon Gagne and Ville Leino are expected to start camp on right wing.

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Amalie Benjamin can be reached at abenjamin@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @amaliebenjamin.