This does not bode well for Boston Bruins and forward Marc Savard.

Savard signed a seven-year contract with the Bruins on Dec. 1 that pays him $28.05 and a yearly cap hit around $4 million. However, the NHL seems to now have a problem with these types of front-loaded contracts and will be looking at Savard, among others, to determine whether or not they can be deemed valid. Other players being looked at are Chris Pronger (7-years, $4.9 cap hit), Marian Hossa (12-years $5.2 cap hit) and Roberto Luongo (12-years, $5.3 cap hit).

If the NHL does indeed go back and nullify these contracts it would be a big move not only for the NHL, but the world of sports. To void a contract that the league has already approved will likely not go over to well, so it would be an edgy move for Gary Bettman (5-years, $WAYTOMUCH cap hit) to pull.

For the Bruins, who sit $3 million above the cap are certainly looking for a way to free up some room would not want to go back to the negotiating table with a guy they were recently (and still are) shopping. If the contract voided the odds of Savard remaining in Beantown aren’t good. Savvy stated that if the Bruins were going to trade him, he would like to go to a team in Southern Ontario to be close to his family. So that means the Bruins would be sending their top playmaking centre to a division rival in the Toronto Maple Leafs and Ottawa Senators with no return.

Having Savard back in form for the 2010-11 season is big for the Bruins. This is a guy who only missed eight games since 2005, before missing Xx games this past season. In all likelihood, second-overall pick in this year’s draft Tyler Seguin will make the team out of training camp and having Savard for him to look up too would be brilliant for the kid’s maturation in to a legitimate NHLer.

The Bruins have a lot of depth at the centre position, with Patrice Bergeron, David Krejci, Dan Paille, not to mention Joe Colborne and Zach Hamill waiting for their chance at the big club. But you cannot go wrong with a wily veteran like Savvy, who brings grit, tenacity and magic hands to each and every game he plays in.

With the recent addition of Nathan Horton from the Florida Panthers, it once again gives Savard the goal-scoring winger to play with. Horton may not have the game breaking shot of Phil Kessel, but he is a big body that knows how to put the puck in the net.

Pending the league’s decision, if the Bruins do have to move forward without number 91 in their lineup, you will see Krejci move in to the role as number one centre. Before suffering a playoff ending injury off the Mike Richards hit, Krejci stepped his game and showed everyone why the Bruins are excited about this kid. He quickly developed chemistry with UFA Miroslav Satan and gave glimpses of the playmaker he can be.

I would like to see Savard stick around, because it could be another season or two before Krejci is ready to step in to the number one centre role. There is also Seguin to think about, because one has to think that he will quickly rise up the depth chart in the coming years. To think that if the Bruins keep their centre core together in the coming years that Patrice Bergeron would be fourth on the depth chart boggles my mind.

It shouldn’t be too long for the league to come to a decision on the front-loaded contract situation. They will have to give enough time for the teams to renegotiate before the season begins.

Its just one big sticky mess that’s also know as the National Hockey League.

Brandon Macdonald
NHLHS Boston Bruins Correspondent
bmacdonald@nhlhotstove.com
Twitter @bMacdonald8

Based on Matthew Pouliot’s series on Circling the Bases, I have decided restore the rosters for every NHL team. Like Pouliot, I have established some ground rules for my selections.

1. Each team contains players they originally drafted or signed before any other NHL team. This includes players drafted and not signed, as well as European free agents coming over at an older age.
2. I have chosen to leave retired players off the list, and lean toward players in the AHL rather than those deported (KHL, SEL, DEL, etc.).

Essentially I am choosing the best available players for a team to succeed in the current NHL season. All 30 teams will be covered, with grades assigned to forwards, defense and goaltending. After all 30 articles are written, they will be ranked in order. This series’ intent is to reward or shame NHL scouts.

Wayne Gretzky, Mark Messier, Jari Kurri, Paul Coffey, Kevin Lowe and Grant Fuhr. This group won 4 Stanley Cups together. It’s almost impossible to fill those skates. Check that, it IS impossible to fill those skates. The Oilers have fallen on hard times since the glory days of the 1980’s. Today’s squad can barely fill out an NHL calibre defensive 6. 3 of the D are currently in the minors and 2 of those have never played an NHL game outside of preseason. How the mighty have fallen.

Forwards:
Definitely not the high powered group that struck fear into every goalie they faced during the 80’s. Still, the forwards would have to be the strength of this team. With a formidable checking line sitting on the bench, the Oilers should have little problem putting the puck into the opponents net.

Matthew Lombardi – Sam Gagner – Ales Hemsky
Ryan Smyth – Shawn Horcoff – Jason Arnott
Jason Chimera – Mike Comrie – Miroslav Satan
Andrew Cogliano – Rob Schremp – Jordan Eberle
Bench: Marc-Antoine Pouliot,  Zack Stortini, Fernando Pisani, Georges Laraque, Curtis Glencross

Familiarity is the key. Four of the top 6 are currently line mates on their current NHL rosters, so as the old saying goes “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Smyth can still stand in front of the goalie, take a beating and score like no one else. ‘Captain Canada’ was left of the Canadian National Men’s roster, for what I believe to be the first time in his active career, for the coming Olympics. I believe this was due mainly to an early season injury that caused him to miss 15 games. Satan, after sitting the beginning of the season, has returned to the NHL and while playing on the third line for Boston, is showing that he can still produce and is good for 40-50 points a season. The rest of the line-up is filled with young players that have shown a lot of promise.

Grade: B+

Defence:
From being a “Who’s who” of NHL Defensemen to a “who’s that?” can’t be a good thing. With only 2 defensemen having played more than a season in the NHL and another 2 never seeing a regular season game, the defence is in for a rough time.

Tom Poti – Danny Syvret
Mathieu Roy – Matt Greene
Alex Plante – Jeff Petry
Bench: Theo Peckham, Taylor Chorney

Poti and Syvret have proven themselves to be serviceable defensemen in their careers, but neither is a top pair guy, yet. Roy and Green are better suited for clean-up minutes, but instead are forced into playing 15-20 minutes a night as top 4 D on this weak corps. Plante and Petry are the unknowns in this group. Plante is a solid, stay at home type of defenseman who can skate the puck out of harm’s way, and may one day become a top 4 guy. Petry was named to the CCHA All-Rookie Team in 2008. Hopefully this pair can move up to the top and play off of each other. Only time and steady development will tell for sure.

Grade: C-

Goaltending:
Andy Moog, Grant Fuhr…Deslauriers? Yes sir you read that right, Deslauriers. Well actually it’s Jeff Drouin-Deslauriers, but come on, how would you get that to fit on the back of a jersey. Being forced into the starters role earlier than expected this season due to an injury to Nikolai Khabibulin, Deslauriers is the only goalie in the Edmonton Oilers system with any significant NHL experience. If you can call 36 games significant.  Conklin should backstop this team on a full-time basis, helping this team stay afloat.

Ty Conklin
Jeff Deslauriers
Devan Dubnyk
Olivier Roy

Outside Conklin, this trio of goalies has a grand total of 44 NHL games to their credit. In his 8 games this season Dubnyk has yet to taste victory compiling a 0-5-1 record with a 3.92 GAA and a 0.869 save %. Hardly inspiring numbers for Oiler fans. Roy may be the dark horse in the group. Many, me included, feel that he should have been added to the Canadian Juniors in favour of incumbent starter Jake Allen, who just never got it going in pre-tournament games and that carried over into the tournament where he gave up 10 goals to a strong US team in 2 games. He makes up for his supposed lack of size, an even 6’ while the rest of the league is moving to goalies in the 6’3” range, by being technically sound in his positioning. Again, only time will tell how this young group of goalies develops.

Grade: D+

The title says it all.  This article will be no more than a comprehensive list of NHL (and some other players owned by NHL teams) players set to participate in the 2010 Winter Olympics.

For the sake of clarity we have sorted players by team.  Minor league players in red, injured players in blue.

Anaheim Ducks (8) – Ryan Getzlaf, Corey Perry, Scott Niedermayer, Teemu Selanne, Saku Koivu, Jonas Hiller, Bobby Ryan, Luca Sbisa

Atlanta Thrashers (5) – Ilya Kovalchuk, Maxim Afinogenov, Ondrej Pavelec, Pavel Kubina, Tobias Enstrom

Boston Bruins (6) – Patrice Bergeron, Marco Sturm, Tim Thomas, David Krejci, Zdeno Chara, Miroslav Satan

Buffalo Sabres (4) – Toni Lydman, Ryan Miller, Henrik Tallinder, Andrej Sekera

Calgary Flames (3) – Jarome Iginla, Miikka Kiprusoff, Olli Jokinen

Carolina Hurricanes (3) – Eric Staal, Joni Pitkanen, Tuomo Ruutu

Chicago Blackhawks (6) – Brent Seabrook, Duncan Keith, Jonathan Toews, Patrick Kane, Marian Hossa, Tomas Kopecky

Colorado Avalanche (3) – Paul Stastny, Peter Budaj, Ruslan Salei

Columbus Blue Jackets (6) – Rick Nash, Jan Hejda, Samuel Pahlsson, Fredrik Modin, Milan Jurcina, Fedor Tyutin

Dallas Stars (4) – Brenden Morrow, Jere Lehtinen, Loui Eriksson, Karlis Skrastins

Detroit Red Wings (7) – Valtteri Filppula, Brian Rafalski, Niklas Kronwall, Nicklas Lidstrom,  Henrik Zetterberg, Pavel Datsyuk, Tomas Holmstrom

Edmonton Oilers (2) - Lubomir Visnovsky, Denis Grebeshkov

Florida Panthers (2) -  Dennis Seidenberg, Tomas Vokoun

Los Angeles Kings (5) – Drew Doughty, Jack Johnson, Jon Quick, Dustin Brown, Michal Handzus

Minnesota Wild (5) – Niklas Backstrom, Mikko Koivu, Antti Miettinen, Marek Zidlicky, Martin Havlat

Montreal Canadiens (6) – Tomas Plekanec, Yannick Weber, Jaroslav Halak, Andrei Markov, Sergei Kostitsyn, Andrei Kostitsyn

Nashville Predators (6) – Alexander Sulzer, Shea Weber, Marcel Goc, Ryan Suter, Martin Erat, Patric Hornqvist

New Jersey Devils (6) – Martin Brodeur, Paul Martin, Zach Parise, Jamie Langenbrunner, Patrik Elias, Johnny Oduya

New York Islanders (1) – Mark Streit

New York Rangers (5) – Ryan Callahan, Chris Drury, Henrik Lundqvist, Andres Ambuhl, Marian Gaborik

Philadelphia Flyers (5) – Chris Pronger, Mike Richards, Kimmo Timonen, Oskars Bartulis, Ole-Kristian Tollefsen

Pittsburgh Penguins (5) – Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Marc Andre Fleury, Sergei Gonchar, Brooks Orpik

Phoenix Coyotes (3) – Sami Lepisto, Zbynek Michalek, Ilya Bryzgalov

Ottawa Senators (6) – Jarkko Ruutu, Filip Kuba, Milan Michalek, Daniel Alfredsson, Kaspars Daugavins, Anton Volchenkov

San Jose Sharks (8) – Dan Boyle, Joe Thornton, Patrick Marleau, Dany Heatley, Douglas Murray, Thomas Greiss, Joe Pavelski, Evgeni Nabokov

St. Louis Blues (3) – Eric Johnson, David Backes, Roman Polak

Tampa Bay Lightning (5) – Antero Niittymaki, Ryan Malone, Mattias Ohlund, Martins Karsums, Andrej Meszaros

Toronto Maple Leafs (6) – Jonas Gustavsson, Mikhail Grabovski, Phil Kessel, Tomas Kaberle, Mike Komisarek, Niklas Hagman

Vancouver Canucks (7) -  Roberto Luongo, Sami Salo, Christian Ehrhoff, Pavol Demitra, Ryan Kesler, Henrik Sedin, Daniel Sedin

Washington Capitals (4) Tomas Fleischmann, Nicklas Backstrom, Semyon Varlamov, Alexander Ovechkin

-Alexander Monaghan
NHLHS Founder
amonaghan@nhlhotstove.com
Twitter: @NHLHotStove

The headline says it all Miroslav Satan signed with the Boston Bruins last night according to a Slovakian press release.

In 65 games last year with the Pittsburgh Penguins the 35-year-old scored 17 goals and 36 points total playing over 25 percent over his time with Sidney Crosby.  Even with improved production from his 2007-2008 campaign the Pens chose not to play the veteran down the stretch when they acquired Bill Guerin and Chris Kunitz sending him to the AHL.

In his demotion to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, better known as the baby Pens, Satan scored nine points in 10 games.  With the Penguins in the playoffs the veteran produced six points in 17 games.

So what does this Topolcany, Slovakia native bring to the Bruins?

Clearly the Slovakian Olympic Team thought Satan would bring something to their team, so the Bruins took a flier on him.  Lets take a look at where he could fit on their roster.

The forward lines for yesterday’s festivities were as follows:

Steve Begin – Marc Savard – Marco Sturm

Daniel Paille – Patrice Bergeron – Mark Recchi

Blake Wheeler – David Krejci – Michael Ryder

Shawn Thornton – Vladimir Sobotka – Byron Bitz

A rudimentary look at these lines should render that Begin belongs on no team’s top line, especially one the caliber of the Bruins.  The impending return of Milan Lucic should solve this problem as the young power forward slots back in to the left of Savard.

I could see the Bruins choosing to move a player, or now slotting Paille down the third line.  At this point everything is speculation.  One would think that Satan at the very least will see the top 9 and most likely with his sniping ability next to either Marc Savard or David Krejci.  With a surprising no movement clause, the Bruins may see something the other 29 NHL teams did not considering it took him until the halfway point to sign.

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-Alexander Monaghan
NHLHS Founder
thehotstove@gmail.com