With talks still swirling regarding the Boston Bruins and Marc Savard’s future with the club, he is still, to date, a Boston Bruin.

Every story that the Bruins are coming up with, you’ll find a Marc Savard comment in there somewhere.

Now that center David Krejci is coming back in schedule with his recovery from the wrist dislocating hit at the hands of Mike Richards, some are saying where will there be room?

Here’s the thing.  Teams can play with 4 lines.  

Being a third or fourth line center on a team full of talented centers is not necessarily a bad thing.  In fact, would it be safe to say that a good center on a third or fourth line might be a good thing?  Wouldn’t you think that it would boost the other lines and make the the team that much better by improving the play of the wingers?

Say what you will, but there has been teams with top notch centers on the third and fourth line before.  And they did make the team better.  

The Edmonton Oilers, Detroit Red Wings, Pittsburgh Penguins, and the Boston Bruins (89-90 season), just to name a few, had a lot of centers that produced for their teams.

If that doesn’t work, there are centers that can play wing.  Newcomers Nathan Horton and Tyler Seguin have proved that they can play wing and play it effectively.

Just in the 2008-09 season, one of their most successful seasons, the Bruins had a a lot of centers playing on the roster, and they were tops in the conference because of it.

The good thing about centers is that they tend to be versatile.  Most can play the wing for three reasons:

1.They are still playing forward and can still be a playmaker as well as score.

2. They tend to know what a center is thinking and be where they need to be.

3. If the on-ice center is tossed out of the face off, they can step in to take the face off and still have a good shot at winning it.

All that is great.  Now we discuss the real problem:  The Cap.

NHLnumbers.com shows four players left to sign and an entry level contract yet to be signed by Seguin, the cap is currently at approximately 55.9 million, and it is going to be a tight squeeze.  

CapGeek.com has the Bruins at a much higher number with a little better than a million left.  Either way, it is so tight I can see some players being traded, leaving or taking a pay cut.  Most likely the first two.  Marc Savard and Tim Thomas are in a no-trade clause.  Will they give it up? 

I do not expect Miroslav Satan or Steve Begin to return as GM Peter Chiarelli did state earlier this month that they may be moving in a different direction with some up-and-coming players from Providence that could do the job at a cheaper price.

Bruins Captain Zdeno Chara is going to be a UFA at the end of this season and, if the team has a successful season, fans are hoping to see him take a pay cut for the club as $7.5 million is a high amount for any player in my opinion.

Oh the joys of the Cap world.

Give me your thoughts…

Read more NHL news on BleacherReport.com

With all the changes and adjustments that need to be made, a lot of Boston Bruins fans are asking President Cam Neely and GM Peter Chiarelli the similar question that was asked of former President Harry Sinden and former GM Mike O’Connell: do they know what is best for the Boston Bruins?

They ask this because of the recent history in the previous management, where they had a team of stars in Joe Thornton, Adam Oates, Ray Bourque, Bill Guerin, Brian Rolston, Mike Knuble, Nicholas Boynton, and Byron Dafoe.

During this time, the Bruins making the playoffs was all but certain. Then the wheels started to come off.

One by one, there were key players traded for little to no return at the beginning, and the Bruins were starting to become the team that “might” make the playoffs.

There were players such as Michael Nylander, Sean O’Donnell, Knuble, Rolston, and Sergei Gonchar in the 2003-04 season. O’Connell blamed owner Jeremy Jacobs for not signing the free agents. While this part could be true, it is the club’s president and GM’s role to get the job done. Where was Sinden in all of this?

The final straw was when Mike O’Connell traded Thornton (then the most valuable player in the NHL and Hart Trophy winner) after he signed a contact extension, and Sergei Samsonov for practice pucks.

This put the Bruins out of playoff contention as the Bruins missed the playoffs in consecutive seasons for the first time in decades (1966-67 and 1967-68 were the last consecutive seasons the Bruins missed postseason play).

The thing that many people did not understand was that the Boston Bruins were contenders and were not missing the playoffs. Although the fire sale did occur, players like Patrice Bergeron, Mark Stuart, P.J. Axelsson, and David Krejci were acquired under O’Connell’s tenure. While they did and are proving to be good moves, they didn’t make sense at the time on a roster of stars that were capable of taking it all the way.

Still, the Bruins were faithful that they had enough and there was a huge public outcry to oust the current management. Their wish was granted.

Mike O’Connell was fired the following season on March 25th, 2006, and Joe Gorten was at the helm as the interim GM. Shortly after that, Peter Chiarelli of the Ottawa Senators was called upon to take on the job.

Harry Sinden stepped down as president and became the Senior Adviser to Jeremy Jacobs.

Just recently, former Bruins forward and the first player to be defined as a power forward, Cam Neely, has taken the role as the the eighth president in the club’s history.

So far with Chiarelli, there has been some rebuilding that occurred during the last four years by making some trades and draft picks. Phil Kessel, Milan Lucic, Brad Marchand, Zach Hamill, Joie Colborne, Jordan Caron, Ryan Button, Jared Knight, Ryan Spooner, and Tyler Seguin were the most notable to date.

The most questionable trade that he has made thus far was that of Phil Kessel. Kessel was playing as advertised, getting the goals needed to help lift the Bruins out of the have-not ranks. 

In the 2006-07 rookie season, he played well with 11 goals and 18 assists, earning him 29 points. In just his second season, he improved to 19 goals and 18 assists to get 37 points. Kessel ’s third season was very successful as he amassed 36 goals and 24 assists for 60 points.

Kessel was asking for more money after his successful season. With the cap world and other players that were contributing with a proven track record, Chiarelli traded Kessel to the Toronto Maple Leafs for first and second round draft picks for 2010 and a first round pick in the 2011 draft.

While Kessel will be a great player in the NHL, he was expecting too much, too soon on a team that was more than halfway through a rebuild.

Some fans were contemplating what Chiarelli was thinking while others recognized that one player doesn’t make the team— even if Kessel was a perfect fit for center Marc Savard.

While Kessel had a good first year in Toronto, he did not top his best of 60 points, and fell from a plus/minus of plus-23 to minus-8 year over year. The Maple Leafs were in 29th place out of a possible 30 teams in the league. Ironically, he registered just one assist in five games against the Bruins last season and was a minus-4.

This put the Bruins at the second over all pick in the standings and guaranteed third over all pick in the lottery. The lottery changed nothing and Boston got Tyler Seguin as the second pick in the 2010 Draft.

Current rumors put center Marc Savard in trade talks with possibly the Ottawa Senators or the Toronto Maple Leafs; both divisional rivals.

So far, there has been chatter that Ottawa will not pursue Savard as they are close to the cap and Toronto’s GM, Brian Burke, has stated he will wait until the UFA to look for any additions. He also added that Savard is not in that plan.

Most say that the move to Toronto would not make any sense as it would give Toronto a one-two punch in reuniting Kessel and Savard, who proved to play very well together. But, it could also further dilute the 2011 draft pick by providing that offensive power to the maple Leafs.  

On the other hand, Savard just came off a Grade-2 concussion—one of four in his career. I cannot see how the Bruins would trade to Toronto for the reasons stated, but stay tuned to this one.

Burke has been known to play cat and mouse with the media and he knows full well to be careful to say anything regarding trades in risk of breaking the anti-tampering rules.

Most recently, Calgary is interested in Savard (reportedly).

David Warsofsky, of Boston College, was traded for center Vladamir Sobotka. The Bruins, rich in quality centers, needed to clear the position when they got center Tyler Seguin in the draft. Although Seguin will most likely play the wing, the center roster still needed to be cleared and it seemed that Sobotka was low on that totem pole.

Warsofsky is a puck-moving defenseman, which the Bruins needed, and to top it off he is a native of Marshfield, MA. Playing as a kid with the Bruins jersey, he gets an opportunity to play for real at the Garden. Currently, his plan is to stay in college.

Does Chiarelli know what he is doing?  So far, he hasn’t made any wrong moves, but that is still yet to be determined.

This is Cory Ducey saying “Hit Hard, But Keep It Clean .”

Read more NHL news on BleacherReport.com

Now that Tyler Seguin is officially a Boston Bruin, that’s it. Someone has to be shipped out of Boston, because there are just two many centres and not enough ice time to go around. There must be another trade coming. It must be for Marc Savard. It had to be to the Toronto Maple Leafs.

After all, if one million people believe it, it must be true right?

Until July 1, Savard has a full no-trade clause, meaning that he can’t be traded unless he gives consent to the deal. After that, it’s a select clause: Savard chooses the five teams he wants to (and will only) go to.

With all of the talk surrounding Savard and Bruins’ goalie Tim Thomas this weekend, the popular destination for Savard was Toronto. The obvious reason for this is the Phil Kessel connection: In 2008-09 Kessel scored a career-high 36 goals while Savard posted a fourth-straight 60-plus assist season as the two played alongside each other.

Last year, when Kessel went to Toronto, it created one hole with two side effects: The Bruins had no one capable of the pure goal production Kessel had brought to the team, and Savard had no one of that capability to pass the puck to.

Kessel went on to score 30 goals in 70 games in a season shortened by offseason shoulder surgery and limited by constantly shifting line combinations. Savard would play just 41 games with 33 points thanks to a knee injury, a foot injury, and another in a long line of concussions.

What that says though is that both benefited from their time apart and could easily survive without each other. It looks like Toronto Maple Leafs’ general manager Brian Burke is thinking the same thing and that the relationship between Savard and Kessel is far from symbiotic.

You wouldn’t be wrong to think that Kessel scoring 30 with last year’s Leafs team was a miracle. He catapulted the misplaced Matt Stajan into a productive stratosphere he had never seen, and after that led Tyler Bozak to a season eerily similar of Savard’s injury-cramped one.

Savard was streaky to start the season with four goals and three assists in seven games, but five of those points coming across just two games. After sitting off with an injury, Savard returned to score a hat trick, two two-assist games, and a four and six-game point streak, but also had 11 pointless games out of 21.

Once he returned for his third extended stay last year (13 games of full health), Savard found his groove. Held off the scoresheet in just four games, Savard had a goal and 10 assists before proceeding to sit out and watch the remainder of the season. At least once the room stopped spinning.

The injuries derailed a season that, if not for the time missed, would have vaulted Savard out of this league-wide trade speculation.

Or maybe it wouldn’t have.

If Savard had produced a 90-point campaign but Boston still drafted the playmaker Seguin, would the Bruins still be eyeing a deal to get the second overall pick a roster spot?

The possibility is there that they wouldn’t be. When Peter Chiarelli talked about where Seguin fit in, he did say that Tyler would get every opportunity to make the team as a centre. But he also asked him about the possibility of playing on the wing, something that Seguin was willing to do. Whether that was a contingency option depending on whether Chiarelli was able to move a centre or not, who knows?

Sidenote: Everybody got so uptight during the draft about which position Taylor Hall and Tyler Seguin played. But you know what? They’re both adaptable. While Hall can be a goal-scoring winger, he’s just as dangerous down the middle of the ice, and he’s played there before. Seguin is the kind of player that will do anything to get a win, so it’s no surprise he’d be willing to hop back and forth.

How about that for a development? We could see Seguin alongside the man he’s supposed to “replace.”

Savard is a point-per-game player at a very affordable contract ($4 million cap hit) even if the early-year payments seem high ($7 million for the next two seasons). Nathan Horton and Seguin will help bolster the scoring on the wings, and while the just barely $6 million in cap space is third-lowest in the league, it’s not the end of the world.

Sure the Bruins can’t get into a no-holds-barred auction for one or two top-four defensemen this offseason, but a wisely spent $4 or $5 million and a trade or two, and Boston can be a complete team.

With Marc Savard in the lineup.

Need to Hate? Want some love? E-mail Bryan at bryanthiel74@hotmail.com or follow him on Twitter @BryanThiel_88 . Also, be sure to check out Hockey54.com—The Face of the Game! for more.

Read more NHL news on BleacherReport.com