The Bruins continued their pre-lockout housecleaning on Saturday, signing Milan Lucic to a three-year contract extension. The deal reportedly is for three years and worth 18 million.
With the lockout set to be imposed at midnight Saturday by commissioner Gary Bettman and the NHL owners in the absence of a collective bargaining agreement, the B's worked feverishly in the last few weeks locking up their key, unsigned players to long-term deals prior to the work stoppage. They recently reached contract agreement with Tyler Seguin and Brad Marchand, ensuring that the core of the team will be intact will play resumes.
This stands in stark contrast to the Bruins' plan of attack in the last lockout, when they let virtually their entire roster become free agents in anticipation of a flood of talent hitting the open market when the new CBA was agreed upon. Instead they were outmaneuvered as other teams gobbled up the available free agents quickly, leaving the B's with an expansion-level club that took years to rebuild.
More to come . . .