BOSTON — The Boston Bruins signed defenseman Kevan Miller to a four-year contract extension and added a pair of assistant coaches.

Boston General Manager Don Sweeney announced the moves Tuesday. Miller’s extension will run through the 2019-20 season and have a cap figure of $2.5 million per year. He entered the offseason as an unrestricted free agent.

The Bruins also signed forward Seth Griffith to a one-year, two-way contract carrying a cap figure of $625,000.

The 28-year-old Miller just completed his third season in Boston, appearing in a career-high 71 games. He also set career bests with five goals, 13 assists and 18 points. Griffith appeared in four games for Boston this season, accruing one assist.

Sweeney also announced the hiring of Bruce Cassidy and Jay Pandolfo as assistants, joining Joe Sacco and Bob Essensa on Claude Julien’s staff. In addition, longtime assistant Doug Jarvis will not return for the 2016-17 season.

BLUES: The Blues are going back to goaltender Brian Elliott for Game 6 of the Western Conference finals against the San Jose Sharks.

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“It’s his turn,” Coach Ken Hitchcock said. “It’s his turn for Game 6.”

Jake Allen has started the last two games and made 21 saves in a 6-3 Game 5 loss that included two empty-net goals.

The Sharks lead the series 3-2 and on Wednesday night can earn their first trip to the Stanley Cup finals. The Blues are in the conference finals for the first time since 2001.

Elliott started every game of the playoffs before Hitchcock switched to Allen for Game 4, believing a shake-up was in order, and the Blues won 6-3 in San Jose. The two split duties during the season.

Hitchcock thought a couple games off might benefit the 31-year-old Elliott during the longest playoff run of his career.

“Yeah, it’s been a mental drain,” Hitchcock said. “This is the first time he’s gone through this and I think (it) allowed him to reset it. I think he’s going to be great tomorrow.”

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Elliott’s 17 starts this playoffs equals his previous career total from the last four years.

SHARKS: Patrick Marleau has played more than 1,500 games with San Jose since joining the NHL as an 18-year-old draft pick but never one quite like the next one.

All those past playoff disappointments that have seemed to define the career of players like Marleau and Joe Thornton could be put to the side temporarily with one more San Jose win.

For the first time in 25 seasons as an NHL franchise, the Sharks are just one win away from making the Stanley Cup final. San Jose takes a 3-2 lead over St. Louis in the Western Conference final into Game 6 on Wednesday night in what should be a frenzied Shark Tank.

For more than a decade, the Sharks have been known as much for their postseason failures as their regular-season success. San Jose has the second-most wins and has played in the second-most playoff series since the start of the 2003-04 season but has fallen short every spring.

The Sharks won just three total games in their first three trips to the conference final, lost an opening series as the top seed in 2009 and most memorably became the fourth NHL team ever to lose a best-of-seven series after winning the first three games against Los Angeles in 2014.

The Sharks then hit what they called rock bottom last year when they missed the playoffs for the first time since 2003 but rebounded this season under first-year coach Peter DeBoer and a core anchored by players like Thornton, Marleau, captain Joe Pavelski, Logan Couture and Marc-Edouard Vlasic that have spent years trying to bring a title to San Jose.

“It’s something I’ve always wanted to do here for the fans,” Marleau said.


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