The Boston Bruins signed Marc Savard to a seven year extension worth just over 28 million. There are many reasons why this is an amazing deal for Boston.
First off, Savard is 32. They signed him through the 2016-2017 season, when Savard will then be 39 years old. The contract is front-loaded, meaning that Savard will make 25.5 million over the first four years. The amount will then decrease for the remainder of the extension.
However, the cap hit will remain the same througout the contract. Even though it is front-loaded, the cap hit will be around 4.2 million each year.
Savard is a 80-90 point center, and the Bruins signed him for about 4 million. That is a steal, and a huge signing for Boston. Now they can continue to build around him over the next few years.
Savard is a very classy guy for this signing. He likes Boston. He wants to play there. He agreed to make the team better by not signing for the money.
Very nice deal.
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A few years ago, Buffalo was unable to accomplish this feat. After winning the president’s trophy, Buffalo decided to let players walk.
General Manager Darcy Regier was unable to sign Daniel Briere, Chris Drury, or Brian Campbell. With the loss of all three of these player, Buffalo has not made the playoffs since.
Now, I understand that it may have been difficult to keep all three of the players. One by one, the city of Buffalo saw these players get signed by different teams.
The frustration level continued to rise during that offseason…..what a dark and miserable summer that was.
Briere, Drury, and Campbell may not have performed very well since leaving Buffalo, but when they were all on the Sabres, the team clicked. The team had over 50 wins and over 300 goals.
I don’t understand how you can let those players go after two seasons that took them to the Eastern Conference Finals.
What Regier should have done was what Boston did with Savard. It would have even been acceptable to keep Briere or Drury. Those were both two captains who were capable of leading the team. Some may even consider Campbell as a captain.
Not only did losing those three hurt. Buffalo then had to overpay for Thomas Vanek. There was no way Regier could let him go as well. Now Vanek is making 7 million…and he certainly is not worth that much.
I love the Buffalo Sabres and I think Vanek is a great player, but he is not worth that much money.
All of this started because the team was unable to sit down and sign Drury and/or Briere.
The Savard deal makes Buffalo look dumb for not being able to sign those players.
Maybe Regier (and the rest of Buffalo) underestimated the loss of the Briere, Campbell, and Drury.
Maybe he thought his team was still good enough to make the playoffs.
Either way, hopefully Buffalo learned it’s lesson.
I give props to Boston for signing Savard to an amazing deal.