Pool Outlook for Boston

The Boston Bruins were full of wow in the 2009 season, as they shot their way up to the top of the Eastern Conference standings by scoring a lot of goals and picking up a lot of points. They were certainly a top notch team for most poolies to pick from, especially with five players in the top 100 of pool scoring and another six players in the top 200. That's a mighty impressive season... too bad the playoffs came to such a sudden end against the Hurricanes.

Leading the way for the Bruins in the points department was Marc Savard, as he finished the year with 25 goals and 63 assists in all 82 GP in 2009. Savard finished 13th in pool scoring for the season and he has been one of the most consistent players over the last four seasons, finishing out of the top 20 once, finishing 29th in 2008. Savard has really come a long way from his days in Calgary and he has some bonafide numbers to suggest that he is a premier player in the league and a great first round pick in your draft.

The remainder of the top Bruins forwards was a mix of new faces, young talent, grinding efforts and veteran savvy. David Krejci came out of virtually nowhere to finish with 73 points in 82 GP; Mark Recchi revived his career with 61 points in 80 GP; Phil Kessel bloomed with 60 points in 70 GP; Michael Ryder showed his admiration of Boston with 53 points in 74 GP; rookie Blake Wheeler had a good start to his career with 45 points in 81 GP; Chuck Kobasew had a tough injury-filled year, but still had 42 points in 68 GP; Milan Lucic is Boston's new favourite son with 42 points in 72 GP; and Patrice Bergeron came back from injury, only to have another, but still had 39 points in 64 GP. With those sort of numbers across the board, it should come as no surprise that they led the Eastern Conference in goals for.

The Bruins, for the better part of the season, were relying on two pillars of strength on the blueline for scoring in Zdeno Chara and Dennis Wideman. Both defenders finished with 50 points each, Chara having 19 goals in 80 GP, while Wideman had 13 goals in 79 GP. Both were instrumental parts of the Bruins power play for either shooting the puck or moving it around. Beyond those two, it wasn't a terribly offensive backend, but they got the job done. Matt Hunwick came out of the woodwork to help the team out and he has a good chance of improving to a point where he's pool ready. Mark Stuart was the only Bruins defenseman to play in all 82 games this season, but his 17 points really lowers his stock a fair bit.

It was a top 20 finish for Tim Thomas in 2009, his first time accomplishing that feat. Thomas finished the season with 36 wins, 5 shutouts and an assist for 83 points, finishing 8th among goaltenders in the league. Thomas did split a lot of time early with Manny Fernandez, who finished with 16 wins and 1 shutout (34 points), so that's the main reason why Thomas finished so low on a East-winning team. There wasn't much doubt that Thomas was the starter for the team, but there was some safety in knowing that he wasn't working quite as hard as some of the Western Conference goalies with few breaks. I would say look for Thomas' workload to increase in 2010 and his numbers to improve a bit more.

2010 Season Outlook
It really looks like it's going to be a busy summer for Bruins management, as they are going to have to sift through a number of current free agents to help fill this team up again, but it will be interesting to see what kind of numbers come out of all this, as they had some new faces emerge in a contract year and the salaries could be a bit more than expected. Even if they had to change a face or two, they still have a great core to work from.

Forwards	Defense	Goaltenders
Marc Savard	Zdeno Chara	Tim Thomas
Michael Ryder	Dennis Wideman
Blake Wheeler	Mark Stuart
Chuck Kobasew	Andrew Ference
Milan Lucic	Aaron Ward
Patrice Bergeron
Marco Sturm
Shawn Thornton

The Bruins team above currently stands at 14 active players and they have a cap value of approximately $45.4 million, which is a little bit on the high end. It doesn't leave a lot of room for adding high-end players, so the management will have a long look at their books and make some judgements before the actual salary cap number comes down the pipe for 2010.

The real difficulty for the Bruins will likely come from the RFA department, as David Krejci, Phil Kessel and Matt Hunwick will all be needing new deals going forward. Krejci was second in team scoring, Kessel led in goals and Hunwick was third in defensemen scoring on the team. Those are three big pieces that the team has to take care of before even looking at their remaining free agents. There were plenty of rumours around the deadline that Kessel would be on his way out and with the cap numbers the way they are, there could be some teeth to this rumour come Draft Day.

Hitting the open market as a UFA will be Mark Recchi, Manny Fernandez, P.J. Axelsson, Steve Montador, Stephane Yelle and Shane Hnidy, few of which have any sort of hope returning, mostly due to the cap. Axelsson and Hnidy do have reasonable shots at returning, as their cost may not be too high for the Bruins going forward.

With Fernandez likely on the way out, there will be a lot of eyes on Tukka Rask coming up from the minors, as he'll get a shot to back-up Thomas in net and even figure into getting some starts and/or taking a good stretch of games if Thomas ends up injured or has a bad cold streak. The Bruins also have a number of good prospects up front, some of which will get a long look at camp this Fall. Brad Marchand and Zach Hamill immediately spring to mind, since they were both playing in the AHL already. Keep an eye on Bruins camp for some young talent that could be possible sleepers.

It's rather scary to think that the Bruins were so very good in 2009 and despite the possible turnaround in personnel, they do have some young kids that will come in and wow some people right away and fill some gaps at a reasonable price. It's going to be a hard season to pick Bruins this Fall, as there will be a lot of poolies with Bruins circled on their list. The trick will be to not overvalue the Bruins players like Lucic or Kobasew, despite them playing some quality minutes with some quality players. Right now, I'm going to marginally increase some players projected numbers, but I am also going to look at a few guys and take them down a bit, as they may have overachieved in 2009. Still, the Bruins are a quality team to pick from and will likely be picked pretty clean by the end of your draft.