Good morning.

Welcome to the new era.

I hate free agency day as much as the next guy, and with the added traffic from the World Cup/NBA free agency day, twitter is probably going to be an epic hellhole today.

There's another option, though - join us on the liveblog where we'll cry, rant, and moan our way through FA day. Let's do it.

Come join us for an entire day of nonsense as NHL free agency runs rampant! Hosted by Derek and Adam of the Pensblog, the chat goes live at 8:30am. SHENANIGANS are pretty much guaranteed.

Back here on Causeway Street we're looking at Begin, Satan, Sabourin, Wozniewski, Larman, Fata, and Lefebvre as UFAs, and Wheeler, Stuart, Paille, Lehtonen, Campbell, Bodnarchuk, Lovecchio, Regan, and McQuaid as RFAs. All RFAs but Paille and Regan have been given QO's, and Begin has essentially been told he's not being invited back.

Speaking from the Providence side of things, it'd be nice to have Sabu back in nets down in RI, but isn't a huge deal; sad to see local boy Regan go, but with two broken hips, that's to be expected.

The Bruins have a significant amount of cap space to play with, and Chiarelli's all but guaranteed that the Bruins aren't done wheeling and dealing yet. Watch this space tomorrow morning for the EPIC LIVEBLOG.

Go B's.

After doing a lot of thinking about the draft yesterday and the pressure heaped on Tyler Seguin's shoulders right now, how about a little look back at the Bruins' actions in the draft over the past four years? A few surprises, things to look out for, and some general fun facts about our last four classes of draftees:

Bruins in the 2009 Draft:

1st pick - 25th overall - Jordan Caron (RW) - QMJHL (Rimouski, now Rouyn-Noranda)

2nd pick - 86th overall - Ryan Button (D) - WHL (Prince Albert)

3rd pick - 112th overall - Lane MacDermid (F) - OHL (Windsor)

4th pick - 176th overall - Tyler Randell (RW) - OHL (Kitchener)

5th pick - 206th overall - Ben Sexton (C) - CJAHL (Ottawa)

NEXT SEASON: Caron in Providence. He beasted in the QMJHL playoffs, and is totally ready to make the jump, MacDermid's already in Prov. Ben Sexton has committed to Clarkson. Randell/Button probably stay in CHL ALTHOUGH Button might make the jump. Randell sounds like a letdown. Also we basically got the pick that turned into MacDermid from Philly for Andrew Alberts (along with Ned Lukacevic). MacDermid is a fun, BIG dude who likes fighting (he racked up 197 PIMs in his last season in the OHL, and 155 last season in Providence.)

AHL fights FTW: MacDermid vs. Springfield's Brandon Mashinter.

Bruins in the 2008 Draft:

1st pick - 16th overall - Joe Colborne (LW/C) - CCHA (U of Denver)

2nd pick - 47th overall - Maxime Sauve (C) - QMJHL (Val d'Or)

3rd pick - 77th overall - Michael Hutchinson (G) - OHL (Barrie Colts)

4th pick - 97th overall - Jamie Arniel (C) - OHL (Sarnia Sting)

5th pick - 173rd overall - Nick Tremblay (C)  - CJHL (Smith Falls)

6th pick - 197th overall - Mark Goggin (C) - US High School (CT)

NEXT SEASON: Colborne, Sauve, Arniel are all in Providence. Hutchinson might end up ECHL. Tremblay is committed to Clarkson, and Goggin is at Dartmouth. Sauve and Colborne have a chance to make the NHL. Arniel spent all of last season in Providence, while Sauve and Colborne joined near the end.

Joe Colborne wearing the Spoked P, taking a faceoff against Lowell.

2007 - 8 Zach Hamill (Prov), 35 Tommy Cross (we traded up to get him. A+ Chiarelli, totally worth it), 130 Denis Reul, 159 Failface Goulet (Prov), 169 Radim Ostrcil, 189 Jordan Knackstedt (Providence)

Cross is D and should be ready to hit the AHL this season or 2011-2012. He's GOOD. Reul and Ostrcil disappeared - Ostrcil is probably going to spend his career in Czech, and Reul was never signed, making him re-eligible for the draft in 2009. Don't think anyone drafted him. Knackstedt is awesome in Providence, Goulet is fair, and Hamill needs to develop further - unsure how much more time the Bruins will spend on his development, though.

Everyone the Bruins drafted in 2006 is in the NHL or AHL. Yuri Alexandrov will round out that class, he was the last holdout. Kessel, Alexandrov, Lucic, Bodnarchuk, Marchand, Nelson were the draftees. Phil Kessel remains the only draftee in the last 5 years to be traded.

Lots of action today as the Bruins selected six other kids to join Tyler Seguin as the newest class of draftees. They also made two trades - one that will be mourned by Bruins fangirls for AT LEAST weeks, and one that will probably be forgotten about forever.

You've all heard enough about Seguin - here's a bit about the guys who were drafted today. Overall I'd have loved to see us get a little more size on the blueline, as that's a bit of an issue on down into the minors.

2nd pick. (32nd overall): Jared Knight, C, London (OHL).

Verdict: My first thought was whoa, I can't believe kids born in 1992 are being drafted. My second though was oh wow, another center. Someone's getting traded today. Getting past the fact that the Bruins' center fixation is getting out of hand, Knight seems like a steal. He actually flew to Boston to skate with the team before the draft. He scored 36 goals in 63 games last year for the Knights, can play RW as well, and basically just looks SOLID. Would love to see him have a stellar year in London and/or Providence next year, then come up and be awesome in the NHL in 2011-2012.

3rd pick. (45th overall:) Ryan Spooner, C, Peterborough (OHL).

Verdict: Another center, a fast, small, speedy kid who's referred to by Central Scouting as one of the best natural centers in the draft. If he spends another season with the Petes and winds up in Providence after a few of the current guys' contracts expire, he could make a huge impact in 2011-2012. Would even like to see him come to the AHL the way Sauve and Colborne did this year when their college/junior team finished their playoff runs.

4th pick. (97th overall:) Craig Cunningham, LW, Vancouver (WHL).

Verdict: Interesting story here. Cunningham played with Milan Lucic for a year with the Vancouver Giants, and apparently they train together in the off season. He's a 20-year-old draftee, which means he'll move to the AHL or ECHL to begin next season. He had 37 goals in 72 games for the Giants last year, and can also play center. He's small (5'10, 180lbs) but versatile, and could be a clutch part of a successful Royals or P-Bruins' season next year.

5th pick. (135th overall:) Justin Florek, LW, Northern Michigan (CCHA).

Verdict: "Blake Wheeler didn't work out, let's try this again." With a similar pedigree to the older midwesterner, and similar size (Florek is 6'4, 195 lbs, similar to Wheeler in his draft year), Florek has a completely different style of game - he's difficult to move off the puck, has "good hands," but struggles a bit offensively. He scored 12 goals in 41 games for Northern Michigan last year. Florek will be a junior this year. As another older draftee - are the Bruins taking these older guys to avoid the delay of development time?

6th pick. (165th overall:) Zane Gothberg, G, Thief River Falls (Minn. H.S.).

Verdict: Could Gothberg wind up being Kevin Regan's replacement? Probably not, as the Bruins' depth at goalie is fairly extensive. He's also verbally committed to University of North Dakota for next year. Let him develop the way Hutchinson and Courchaine have, and we'll see him in a few years.

7th pick. (195th overall:) Maxim Chudinov, D, Cherepovets (Russia).

Verdict: ZOMG THE BRUINS DRAFTED A RUSSIAN!!!1 okay, not quite that surprising. Chudinov is a smallish defenseman who has previously played with Yuri Alexandrov, Bruins prospect drafted in 2007. Chudinov is 22, making him the oldest Bruins' draftee this year. Interested to see if he and Alexandrov make things happen during development camp; whether or not he stays with Cherepovets next season might depend on how they connect.

8th pick. (210th overall:) Zach Trotman, D, Lake Superior (CCHA).

Verdict: At 6'3 and 190 lbs, the Bruins traded their last-round pick in 2011 to snag Trotman, adding significant size to a small blueline, both in the NHL and the AHL. Trotman even has had a few fights during his time in the NAHL, before college. He's yet another kid born in 1990, and will be 20 in August. He's not an offensive defenseman by any means, but if successful, will be a solid stay-at-home defenseman for the B's. Or, this could be the most irrelevant trade ever, and could be the most quickly forgotten. Time will tell.

I find it interesting that of the eight prospects drafted, four are going to be twenty or older this year. We got four Canadians, three Americans, and one Russian. Two are not eligible to play for the team they played for last year, although one of those two is committed to college. We could easily see a few of these guys in the Bruins system this year rather than their respective junior teams, and that's an exciting thought. I'm particularly interested in where Craig Cunningham ends up. Would also like to see Florek up his offensive production at NMU next year.

Unrelatedly, Tuukka Rask's brother got drafted late by Nashville, just for funsies.

Trade : Vladimir Sobotka for Dave Warsofsky

Verdict: Incredible amounts of WIN. As a BU alum who is insanely proud of her Alma Mater, I could not be more on board with this if I tried. I'm sad to see Sobotka go - he was a gritty center who had flashes of hitting and goal-scoring brilliance, but thinking about it - we have so many skilled centers in the organization, with players like Colborne and Sauve chomping at the bit right behind him. Odds are if he stayed, Sobotka would have been press-boxed or sent to the AHL, allowing Savard, Krejci, Seguin, and Bergeron to play the four center roles, or he'd have been relegated to the fourth-line wing, a position he's admitted to not really being comfortable playing. It's best for his career if he goes to a place where he has an opportunity to excel rather than be stuck in a parade of centers who are more skilled/fit better into the team than he does, rather than have him bounce between the AHL and NHL as he's done for the past three seasons.

Warsofsky is a stud. He's 19 years old and already has a Beanpot, a Hockey East championship, an NCAA championship, World Junior gold under his belt. He scored in the USA-Canada final game, and scored the first college goal at Fenway Park on January 8th, 2010. The only other college player who's as decorated as he is is USA teammate and college rival Chris Kreider, who is a Rangers' prospect. He's played in TD Garden, MSG, and on the international stage, and is committed to BU for next season. He's another smallish defenseman, but he's a goal scorer - 12 goals for BU last season. A Warsofsky-Kampfer D-pair in Providence would be a fantastic way for him to cap out the 2010-2011 season, and it's definitely something we could see next year. So a small salary dump for an awesome unsigned prospect? I totally approve.

Johnny Boychuk re-signed with the Boston Bruins for 1.8M/year for two years today, according to an official statement put out by the Bruins.

In a nutshell: HELL YES. That is a decent price for a UFA who could have walked for a larger salary. It really speaks to the fact that Boychuk wants to be in Boston, wants to play in Boston, and he even said so himself today - he apparently wants to throw out the first pitch at a Red Sox game. I say we let him do it as soon as they're back from this road trip.

Boychuk was one of the few outstanding players who far exceeded expectations last year, starting out the year as the seventh defenseman and finishing paired with Zdeno Chara. Here you can even see his epic scar from diving to block the puck WITH HIS FACE. That is how you dive. Take notice, Italian soccer team.

Other stuff going on with the Bruins today includes a lot of chatter surrounding Tim Thomas apparently speaking with other teams (sob!), Marc Savard trade rumors, and rumors that Chiarelli might trade up. While I'm inclined to believe the Thomas rumors, the Savard ones make no sense, and Chiarelli has SAID that he's satisfied with the #2 spot.

The Bruins also made Paille a qualifying offer, which seems strange to me as Campbell was supposedly brought in to be a penalty-killer/third line type guy just like Paille was last year. How many of this type of guys do we actually need? Moving Tim Thomas should become a priority now (I hear Philly and San Jose are interested), and the extra cap room should be used to sign another power forward, move Ryder, and possibly sign a more experienced defenseman.

The NHL awards were last night, and in case you missed it, here's the only thing you really need to see:

So Nathan Horton is, at least for now, a Bruin, along with Son-of-Colin Campbell; they get to re-unite with former Panthers teammate Dennis Seidenberg. And there was much rejoicing. Boston traded the 15th overall pick and perennial scapegoat Dennis Wideman for these guys.

So the real questions now become: Who else do the Bruin shed in order to free up some cap space? Does trading Wideman mean a guarantee that Stuart and Boychuk will be signed? This seems to put a lot of weight on the younger defensemen who have played in Providence for the most part until now, unless Chiarelli plans to fast-track Yuri Alexandrov. We're looking at leaning on some very young defensemen, either way.

Son-of-Colin....okay, okay, GREG Campbell only put up 17 points last season in 60 games for the Florida Panthers. The only upside apparent from him is that the Bruins might get a few Wheel-of-Justice calls thrown their way for playing him, but aside from that, he's probably a fourth-line guy. It'd be great to see the Bruins flip him and, say, Wheeler, Hunwick or Ryder for a winger like Kris Versteeg or Mason Raymond, crafting a lineup that looks like this:

Lucic-Savard-Horton
Wheeler/Ryder-Krejci-Hall/Seguin
Sturm-Bergeron-New Guy
Thornton-Sobotka-Marchand

Chara-Seidenberg
Ference-Stuart
Boychuk-Hunwick
McQuaid/Alexandrov/Bodnarchuk

Rask
Thomas(?)

What I love about the movement of Wideman is that it does in fact open up options from the minor leagues, getting a new guy into the 7th spot, which is good if the Bruins plan to use Alexandrov as has been rumored. It also forever and ever eliminates the heart-attack-inducing FAIL that was Wideman-Hunwick as a D-pair. Flashes of brilliance from those two were NOT worth the constant panic attacks when they weren't on their game together. It'd be far preferable, now, if the Bruins do keep Hunwick, to put him with someone who's a bit less of a puck-moving defenseman, like Boychuk. If Boychuk has another year like his last, the D should be in good shape.

Campbell is an RFA - if the Bruins do make him an offer, he's apparently a hard-hitting, relatively fast guy, which opens up the option of having a fourth line that's not a bunch of goons, but rather a small, ass-kicking, occasional goal-scoring line, if the Bruins can work Marchand in. Having Thornton, Campbell, and Marchand rotate games around Sobotka could be a fairly interesting situation.

Another issue lies in goaltending, as several sources have reported that Thomas would be willing to waive his no-trade clause to be a #1 starter somewhere. San Jose, Tampa Bay, and Philadelphia are reported as being the front-runners pursuing him. Could we potentially be looking at swapping Timmy for a decent winger from one of those cities? Does Recchi re-sign? Only eight more days until we find out for sure, and the salary cap increase isn't going to make these decisions any easier. Different, but not easier. The only guarantee seems to be that Chiarelli and Neely aren't quite done here.

And of course the last question becomes....who will be the Next Great Bruins Scapegoat?

FRIDAY IS THE NHL DRAFT (duh).

Join us at Quincy Market and Boston Beer Works for the official NHLTweetup!

Click here to RSVP!

There are officially 86 days until the Bruins step on the ice to play again.

86 days.

Granted, the first game will be mostly rookies, and preseason games are always sort of entertaining for different reasons than regular season games, but still - just a little under three months until the hockey drought ends.

The Bruins announced their entire preseason schedule today, which includes games here in America against the Islanders, Capitals, Canadiens, and Panthers before the B's jet over to Belfast (yes, the Belfast in Northern Ireland) to play against the Giants Select side.

The Belfast Giants are Ireland's "premier ice hockey team." They play in the Elite Ice Hockey League of the United Kingdom, and won the league's playoff championship last year. They play their games in Odyssey Arena in Belfast and have a dedicated fanbase, whose major website can be found here. In their ten years of existence, they've never finished below fourth in their league, and have won two league championships and two playoff championships. They've even had an ex-NHL star, Theo Fleury, play for them.

It should be an interesting game in which we see a lot more of the rookies, considering Belfast's performance in the Gardiner Cup last year. The Gardiner Cup was a tournament between the Belfast Giants, the Edinburgh Capitals, and the AHL's Toronto Marlies and Hamilton Bulldogs. Belfast scored no goals and were eliminated in the first round, losing 7-0 against Hamilton. Needless to say, if an AHL team could demolish the Giants like that, it's a little scary to think what a top-line NHL team could do. So, I'm predicting we see a lot of P-Bruins and rookies playing in that one.

The Bruins, from there, will move on to Liberec in the Czech Republic, to play Liberec Bili Tygri HC (the Liberec White Tigers). Liberec should prove to be more of a challenge, as the Czech Extraliga is ranked by the IIHF as the third strongest in Europe behind Russia and Finland. (Great Britain's EIHL, by comparison, is ranked 21st). Liberec has several former NHL players, including current captain Petr Nedved. Of note is Liberec defenseman Martin Cakajik, who actually played for HC Trencin Dukla at the same time that Zdeno Chara did, back in 2001-2002. (Granted, Chara only played 8 games there, but they were still teammates.) Iiiinteresting.

From Liberec it's on to Prague to open the 2010-2011 regular season against the Coyotes on October 9th and October 10th, at Prague's O2 arena, which seats 17,300 people, comparable to any NHL arena on this side of the Atlantic. It should be a fun matchup, with a combined seven Czech players on the two teams getting to play in front of their home country, barring any roster changes between now and then.

But before the preseason we have the draft, free agency day, and development camp - it's definitely shaping up to be an interesting offseason.

So yesterday seems to have kicked off the marathon of shenaniganery and movement within the NHL that runs up until July 1st. It was a big day for the Bruins, as Cam Neely was named president (basically he'll be doing what he's been doing as VP, with slightly more responsibility; there was no president preceeding him as the last president, Harry Sinden, left that position a few years ago), the Draft Day party was announced, and, in minor league land, the AHL restructuring will directly affect the Bruins' AHL affiliate Providence Bruins.

By the way, big screen at Quincy Market? Heck yeah. Just what everyone needs, Taylor Hall's face in stunning, giant high-definition. I can't want.

So that's all yesterday, and today - today, young goalie Jaroslav Halak is gone from the Northeast Division, traded from Montreal to St. Louis for some prospects. For Bruins fans, this trade is reason to be pleased - facing Carey Price always seems less daunting than facing the Slovakian Superstar. Here's hoping he does well in St. Louis - Halak vs. Niemi ought to be a fun matchup next year. From a neutral perspective (sort of), on the surface, the trade seems a bit one-sided, with the Blues winning out spectacularly. However, if you think about previous young goalies in the past few years - Steve Mason, Semyon Varlamov - it's just as likely that Halak might flame out next year after his extremely impressive playoff run this year.

Draft in a week. Let the trading shenanigans begin!

To close out, check out this awesome mock-up of Tuukka's pads done for The Goalie Guild's padstracker. Yep, those look about right.

Amid the craziness of draft rankings and speculation on who'll make the team next year, sometimes it's fun to have a look back at what the current Bruins' offensive weapons were doing back in the day before their NHL careers.

Take David Krejci, for example. Krejci played in the Quebec Major Junior hockey league as one of 26 "imports" in the 2004-2005 season; the Gatineau Olympiques only imported Krejci and fellow Czech Petr Pohl. (Pohl, for comparison, bounced around the AHL and AA-level leagues and finally landed in the Finnish League, where he now plays for SaiPa.)

Krejci put up 22-41-63 totals in 2004-2005, and 27-54-81 in 2005-2006, before exploding offensively in the 2006 QMJHL playoffs and scoring 32 points in 17 games. In this interview at Drummondville (Krejci's Olympiques took the Drummondville Voltigeurs to seven games in that series before beating them to move on and face Chicoutimi), even the interviewer is a little bit in disbelief of Krejci's scoring abilities.

The Olympiques ended up beating Chicoutimi four games to one, before losing to Moncton, who ended up losing to Quebec in the 2006 Memorial Cup finals.

And there's your video of the day.

You may or may not be noticing some changes around Something's Bruin.

We're moving all our stuff in over the next few days (it's a long trek on over from Tea Party Throwdown) but regular posting should resume shortly.

I just want to thank Greg Ezell for all he's done over the past year; here's just hoping I can keep the place up to speed.

SEVENTEEN DAYS TO TAYLORHALLORTYLERSEGUIN. Count 'em down.