The Bruins were quick on the draw releasing their roster for their rookie camp and their eventual training camp roster and I think we'll all be playing 'eliminate the names' as they go and work towards their final roster for Saturday, October 9th, when they open up against the Phoenix Coyotes at home in TD Gardens.There are lots of names on this list, but in fairness, that isn't all of them, as there were 15 names on the rookie camp list that I had omitted from this post, because they were not on my master list. I am not exactly giving them the fairest shot, but if they make it through rookie camp and into training camp, they can most certainly be on the list after that.
As you can see below, the roster below is separated into three sections: the assumed locks, the training camp veterans and the rookie camp players. As training camp wears on, the names will be eliminated from the list when players are returned to juniors, sent to Providence or released.
| Forwards | Defense | Goalies |
| Nathan Horton | Zdeno Chara | Tuukka Rask |
| Patrice Bergeron | Dennis Seidenberg | Tim Thomas |
| David Krejci | Johnny Boychuk | |
| Mark Recchi | Matt Hunwick | |
| Blake Wheeler | Andrew Ference | |
| Marco Sturm | Mark Stuart | |
| Michael Ryder | ||
| Marc Savard | ||
| Dan Paille | ||
| Milan Lucic | ||
| Gregory Campbell | ||
| Shawn Thornton | ||
| Brad Marchand | Adam McQuaid | Nolan Schaefer |
| Zach Hamill | Andrew Bodnarchuk | |
| Jordan Knackstead | Jeffrey Penner | |
| Jeff LoVecchio | Nathan McIver | |
| Kirk MacDonald | Cody Wild | |
| Levi Nelson | ||
| Jeremy Reich | ||
| Wyatt Smith | ||
| Jamie Arniel | Yuri Alexandrov | Adam Courchaine |
| Jordan Caron | Matt Bartkowski | Matt Dalton |
| Joe Colborne | Steven Kampfer | Michael Hutchinson |
| Yannick Riendeau | ||
| Tyler Seguin |
The Bruins are already fairly stocked up on talent in their main roster, so the camp will hopefully get the best out of the bubble players and make everyone else work a little harder too. Players like Marc Savard, who have been sitting on the rumour mill all Summer may have a little extra to work for, despite getting his manager's approval and word that he wasn't going to be traded at any point in the off-season. With Marco Sturm starting the year on the injured reserve, there will be a good trial spot open for one of the youngsters in the forward ranks and that will be a hotly contested spot to win.
Unfortunately for the Bruins, they are also mired in a cap space quandary. The top roster, not discounting Sturm's injury for the first month or so, comes in hot at $59.7 million, which is a shade over the salary cap ceiling. That's not all, however, as the team is also pegged with a couple of buyouts and a cap overage penalty from 2010, which brings their annual number up to $62.2 million, $2.8 million over the ceiling. That means there will likely have to be cuts made, regular players possibly sent down to the minors to start the year or trades to shift salary out.Since there is some quality depth in the forward ranks, it would be theoretically wise to move some big money out of the top 12 forwards and insert some of the youth, you would think, which made the Savard rumours somewhat plausible. Tim Thomas also has to think he's a salary cap casualty waiting to happen, with his $5 million cap hit looming on the bench, playing back-up.
There are a good number of teams that are in the same kind of financial boat as the Bruins, but all of these teams do have a bit of flexibility to get out of their cap problems with some quality depth. If teams are not hurting against the Summer cap, which is never really an explored scenario, then teams will likely carry their cap burden into camp, letting the cookie crumble and see how much work they actually have to do, barring injuries or any other unforeseen circumstances. The Bruins will need some work done, but patience will definitely be key to their successes this year.
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