The Brains Behind the Bruins

In less than six years the NHL's best General Manager, Boston's Peter Chiarelli, has drafted, signed or acquired all but three of the 23 active players on his roster

When Peter Chiarelli was hired by the Bruins in May of 2006, he inherited a team that seemed to be going nowhere after it traded a dollar (Joe Thornton) for three quarters (Brad Stuart, Marco Sturm, Wayne Primeau) and finished 13th in the East.

Knowing the team had lost it's identity, Chiarelli immediately capitalized on a brutal mistake when the team he had just left, the Ottawa Senators, chose to re-sign Wade Redden over Zdeno Chara. That allowed Chara to hit the open market, and Chiarelli snapped him up with a five year deal that made the towering defenceman the NHL's highest paid rearguard ($7.5 million/year) and the new face of the Bruins.

That same summer Chiarelli also added free-agent Marc Savard, drafted Phil Kessel (5th), Milan Lucic (50th), and Brad Marchand (71st), and traded former Calder trophy winning goalie Andrew Raycroft to Toronto for Tuuka Rask. Even though Boston improved by only 2 points in the standings during Chiarelli's first season (06-07), the foundation for an elite team was quickly being put in place.

The next year (07-08) the Bruins returned to the playoffs, and as an eighth seed forced a game seven before losing in the opening round. They advanced to the second round the following two years (08-09 and 09-10) before becoming the Stanley Cup champions in 2010-11. That culminated a pretty good run.

Or so we thought.

Improbably, they've actually improved upon that form and have been steamrolling the NHL since Halloween. Boston is currently on a 24-4-1 run that has included a pair of 6-0 triumphs, as well as 7, 8, and 9 nothing games in their favour. They lead in goals scored and goals against, have the league's best road record, are the only team not to have allowed a shorthanded goal, and could have as many as 11 players score 15 or more goals.

Chiarelli has assembled hockey's deepest and most complete line-up and his Bruins are the odds-on favourite to become only the second team in the last 20 seasons to successfully defend their championship (Detroit in 96-97 and 97-98).

In addition to the moves outlined earlier, Chiarelli has made a number of shrewd high profile deals (Kessel for draft picks that became Tyler Seguin and Dougie Hamilton; Brad Boyes for Dennis Wideman, who eventually turned into Nathan Horton and Gregory Campbell), was rewarded for staying patient with holdover young talent (Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci), and identified and acquired the right veteran pieces to help short-term (Mark Recchi) and long (Rich Peverley, Chris Kelly, Andrew Ference, Dennis Seidenberg, Johnny Boychuk).

Even the goaltending situation, which not that long ago was a potential area of concern, appears to be working itself out beautifully for Chiarelli. After Tim Thomas provided exceptional value during his first three and a half years in Boston, Chiarelli signed the goalie to a four year $20 million contract extension that kicked in for the 09-10 season and would see Thomas through to his 40th birthday. As that season unfolded Thomas struggled and Rask emerged, and it looked like the Bruins might be stuck with a potentially crippling $5 million cap hit for an aging back-up goalie.

Instead, Thomas bounced back with a Vezina and Conn Smythe-winning performance last year, has posted nearly identical numbers again this year, and now has only one more very cap manageable season left on that extension. Meanwhile Rask has gained plenty of experience, and will be looking to increase his workload and salary at a time that should fit perfectly into Chiarelli's plans.

Which evidently include more Stanley Cup parades in Boston.

*Bergeron, Krejci, and Thomas were the only three players Chiarelli didn't bring to Boston.

NHL Free Agency: Winners and Losers

The Losers:

New York Rangers
Glen Sather has been the Rangers GM since 2000 and during his nine seasons in charge the Blueshirts have made four playoff appearances and never advanced past the second round. Slats has signed three of the worst contracts currently in hockey (Drury, Gomez, Redden) and just massively overpaid for Derek Boogard (4 years, $6.6 million), who hasn't scored a goal in his last 190 games. There is no question that Boogard is one bad hombre who will protect his teammates and strike fear in opposing players, but he plays about five minutes a game. Crazy.

Vancouver Canucks
Too long for Dan Hamhuis (six years), too much for Manny Malholtra ($2.5 a year), and it may end up costing them Mason Raymond. I can totally understand adding either Hamhuis or Ballard, but grabbing both of them seems redundant. It looks like Mike Gillis, who now has six defenceman earning at least $3.25 million, has gone to the Brian Burke school of building a blue line. Obviously, that is not a good thing.

Ottawa Senators
If I were a Sens fan and was looking at paying a total of $15.3 million (or roughly 26% of my cap space) next year to Alex Kovalev, Sergei Gonchar and Pascal Leclaire...well, let's just say Bryan Murray would not be on my Christmas card list. Gonchar has been one of if not the elite point producing defenceman in the league over the last ten years, but at 36, and after playing only 87 of a possible 164 games the last two years, it just doesn't make a lot of sense to give him three years AND a raise.

Buffalo Sabres
Over-paid for a washed up Jordan Leopold (three years, $9 million) instead of spending an extra $375k a year to keep Henrik Tallinder even though they have more than $10 million in available cap space. This was dumb on two levels: 1) Tallinder is 1000 times the player that Leopold is, and 2) he paired with and mentored Tyler Myers all of last year and allowed him to blossom into a bonafide force. Buffalo will need the pre-Olympic version of Ryan Miller just to squeak into the playoffs next year.

The Winners:

Tampa Bay Lightning
Stevie Y knows what he's doing. The rookie GM somehow convinced the Flyers to take Andrej Mezaros off his hands (Paul Holmgren and his scouting staff didn't watch Tampa play the last two years?) and then more than replaced him with a superior and cost-effective Pavel Kubina (two years, $7.7 million), rewarded a deserving Martin St.Louis with an extension and topped it off by signing a quality goalie (Dan Ellis) to a short-term deal (two years, $3 million). If Yzerman manages to send Vinny Lecavalier to LA, he may have won the 2010-11 GM of the Year Award before the season even starts.

New Jersey Devils
Anton Volchenkov was made to play in the Devils system and while the length of his new contract might be a little longer than I would like (six years), the price was more than fair ($4.25 million per). Sweet Lou also added Henrik Tallinder to give them their best defensive unit since the Scott Stevens/Scott Niedermayer days. If the Kovalchuk deal goes through and they don't have to give up Zajac to make room for him, I very much like Jersey's chances next year.

San Jose Sharks
After nine years with Evgeni Nabokov as their starter that resulted in limited post-season success, it was absolutely the right time to let him walk. The fact that Doug Wilson then jumped onboard the cheap goaltending train makes it even better. Antero Nittimaki (two years, $4 million) is definitely good enough to win with, and for all we know, Thomas Greiss might be too.

Calgary Flames
Darryl Sutter has been getting absolutely crushed by the Canadian media, particularly for his moves on July 1st, but I actually like both of the signings. Olli Jokinen is coming off of two disappointing seasons and never quite found his groove in Calgary during his first go-around, but at that price ($3 million per for only two years) I think the risk is worth the potential reward. Same thing goes for Alex Tanguay, who will earn $1.7 million on a one year deal and can also play in the Flames top-6.