Random Ramblings

The Boston Bruins signed center Marc Savard to a 7 year contract extension worth just over 28 million dollars last Wednesday.  Savard who would have been a free agent this coming off season will likely finish his career in black in gold, which he has been very out spoken about doing.  “I think I stated earlier in some articles that I wanted to stay in Boston for the rest of my career and it looks like I’m going to have that chance,” Savard said at a news conference last week.  “I’m happy about that. Over the last few years, I’ve watched this town grow back into a hockey town. And, hopefully, our goal as a team and as a staff comes true, that we can bring a (Stanley) Cup back to Boston.”

Savard has been Boston’s leading score for each of the past 3 seasons, and since coming to Boston in 2006 has scored 70 goals and 206 assists over the past 4 years.  Savard’s contract will hit the salary cap at about 4.2 million dollars each year, which is very cap friendly for Boston.  The deal allows the Bruins to keep cap space, while being able to keep their most productive offensive player, yet it also gives Savard the money that he deserves.  Players will similar offensive numbers to his hit their team’s salary cap at around 5.5 million dollars a season.

Savard responded to his new contract last Saturday against the Toronto Maple Leafs scoring a hat trick in a 7-2 romping, which saw former Bruins wing man Phil Kessel make his return to Causeway Street for the first time since he was traded back in September for a first and a second round draft pick.  The first round pick that Boston received for Kessel looks more and more valuable with each Toronto loss.  Toronto has the second lowest point’s total. The team with the lowest point total at the end of the season has the best percentage of getting the number 1 overall pick in the draft each year.

Another interesting storyline coming from Boston is actually occurring between the pipes.  Debate is beginning to start about who should be the B’s number one goalie.  According to Bruins coach Claude Julien, Tim Thomas (7-7-3, 2.48 GAA) is still the number one man, though lately Thomas hasn’t seen much ice time.  Thomas who missed 6 games with an undisclosed injury watched ‘back-up’ rookie Tukka Rask (8-2-2, 1.97 GAA) go 4-1-1 with a 4 game winning streak.  Boston is currently in the midst of a 7-1-1 stretch which dates back to November 19th, and Tukka is one of the main reasons why.  Coming into the season Rask had started just 4 career NHL games, spending much of his time with Providence in the AHL last year.

Although Thomas is the reining Vezina Trophy winner (given to the league’s best goaltender) it seems that Julien has been going with the hot hand lately.  Thomas has started in just 3 games since November 14th, including being pulled last Friday in Boston’s 5-1 loss to the Montreal Canadians.  No matter what your feeling is on who should start it seems like Julien has done the right thing in letting current performance dictate the starter.

As things between the pipes heat up for Boston the team as a whole has found itself back atop the Eastern Conference’s Northeast Division with 35 points heading into Wednesday’s battle against division foes Toronto.  It will be interesting to see where the B’s stand over the next few weeks leading up to the big 2010 Winter Classic on New Years Day at Fenway Park against the Philadelphia Flyers, and who will be anchoring them between the pipes.

(Matty P can be heard Friday afternoon’s from 2-4 on Three Men and a Mic on WSKB 89.5)