The Boston Bruins announced their 53-man camp roster Wednesday night, and the speculation is all over the place regarding their salary-cap problems and the new problem general manager Peter Chiarelli has without adequate space under the NHL's $69 million cap to re-sign defenseman Torey Krug and right wing Reilly Smith.

The Boston Bruins announced their 53-man camp roster Wednesday night, and the speculation is all over the place regarding their salary-cap problems and the new problem general manager Peter Chiarelli has without adequate space under the NHL's $69 million cap to re-sign defenseman Torey Krug and right wing Reilly Smith.



On Krug: The Michigan native who plays left side on the third defense pairing was the magic elixir of the Boston power play when he was inserted on emergency during the 2013 playoffs. After scoring four goals on Henrik Lundqvist in a five-game series win over the Rangers, Krug continued in his role through those playoffs and throughout last season. Now his contract is up. He has had none of the classic Group 2 (restricted) free-agent rights like arbitration or — worst-case scenario — eligibility to sign an offer sheet from a rival team wanting Krug or at least to give the screw another quarter turn on the Bruins.



On Smith: Same contractual circumstances for (so far) the best of the sweeteners that came in the deal that sent Tyler Seguin and Rich Peverley to Dallas (the others are LW Matt Fraser and D Joe Morrow). When Loui Eriksson's season got off to a meandering start worsened by two concussions within a month and a half, Smith's early-season emergence as an energetic presence on Patrice Bergeron's right wing was a saving grace for the deal, at least temporarily. Smith hit a long-lasting wall but picked up his play late in the season and in the playoffs. It's expected the Bruins have at least a two-for-one going in this deal after Peverley's near-tragic episode with heart failure during a game last season.



Peverley was an excellent player for the Bruins (filled in on Krejci's RW for Nathan Horton in the 2011 finals and led Boston in scoring in the 2012 playoffs), and last report had him working his way back toward what he hopes will be a return to the Dallas lineup. His contract is reportedly being dealt same as Marc Savard's is dealt with in Boston (i.e. he's on their salary cap, but the team has the right to place him on long-term injured reserve if necessary to get under the cap).



While we're on the subject, Savard's $4M/per hit stays on Boston's cap until they're done with their offseason maneuvering, then the Bruins will place him on LTIR for the purposes of getting back under the cap. As for Chiarelli, Rink Rap finds it hilarious that he is taking heat from people for putting himself in this position. Chiarelli built a perennial Stanley Cup contender by making goodwill investments in secondary character players. It's what separates a team like the Carolina Hurricanes in 2005-06 from the Hurricanes in 2013-14. Now, because the NHL rolled back the salary cap with the leverage of a lockout, Chiarelli is in a position he would not otherwise be in. And, Rink Rap wildly speculates, won't be in when the cap goes back up several million. This fiscal misfortune is the price of success intensified by a labor war. Nothing to criticize in this regard in my opinion. "Blah blah blah, they shouldn't have paid Chris Kelly all that money "¦ " Kelly got the money when he was a sort of iron man. The last two seasons he's been plagued by broken legs and back surgery. Now he's a bad contract? No. It's called The Price Of Success.



Back to our regularly scheduled programming.



Like most journalists, I get my information from CapGeek.com and consult with people in and/or close to the business if I need to understand something. So I offer this little disclaimer; I am nowhere near a cap expert. Chiarelli, by the way, is (more reason for my laughter at the criticism).



What we can always argue about the GM and coaching where it concerns players and strategy, and that — along with modern-hockey history (1967-present) — is what I major in. I like to make relevant comparisons of championship models of teams past or compare the qualities of players from generation to generation or even groupings of players (i.e. the two-man lines of the 80s with Gretzky-Kurri, Trottier-Bossy and Pederson-Middleton vs. today's versions: Krejci-Lucic, Bergeron-Marchand, etc). If it seems relevant to a topic, I like to introduce it to discussion, not just because it's my good-ol' days (actually my good-ol' days are before that "¦ I don't want to tell you how much before "¦).



What Chiarelli has told us: He acknowledges nine NHL defensemen, two of which we can expect will be traded. Let's run through them.



1. Chara: The captain remains core to the core.



2. Seidenberg: All signs point to a healthy recovery from the Cup-canceling ACL injury of Dec. 27.



3. Boychuk: The right-shot veteran is in the final season of his contract and has a potential windfall in free agency in 2015. Therefore he has been widely speculated as the one-shot-deal fixer to the salary-cap problem (besides, how could the Bruins, already strapped, afford to fit him under next summer?). But, as stated here earlier, there will be a cap recovery. As far as Rink Rap is concerned, Boychuk's timely contributions and big-play capability in all three zones not only make him a priority piece for this team to sustain its identity, re-signing him is essential for more kicks at the can because, minus explosive offensive players Nathan Horton and Seguin, the Bruins need explosion where they can find it and cannot continue to afford sacrificing it in favor of system players (ie. Seguin for Eriksson, Horton for Iginla). Trading Boychuk would be a mistake. His skills, grit and character are a great fit for a defense getting young, and his personality is great medicine for a room for of athletes whose intensity follows them off the ice.



4. Hamilton: Yes, the big kid is emerging as a potential star in the NHL. But it's totally against the Bruins' religion to prematurely structure their team in a manner that acknowledges that expectation and turns his development into a cap-half-empty. Hamilton turned 21 three months ago, and his position is top-four defense. The Bruins will let not screw this up.



5. Krug: See above. If he does not re-sign (one report had a competitive offer from a KHL team), David Warsofsky will get a richly deserved tryout. But that is not a scenario that behooves a team that in this era has not known consistent, powerplay success without Krug manning the left point.



6. McQuaid: Tough guy who has been dealing with injuries and illnesses the past year and now seems ready to try to reclaim his place on the club. Only thing is, in his absence, the Bruins discovered Kevan Miller, an energetic, tough player who fits perfectly into the right-side, third-pairing role — and at almost a million in annual savings under the cap. McQuaid has to play to reestablish value even if the Bruins have determined that Miller is his long-term replacement, so expect this to be the most direct battle for a camp position.



7. Miller: See McQuaid. Note that Rink Rap fully expects that both of these guys will start the season with the Bruins and the McQuaid, unless he is clearly outperformed, will get the majority of starts. The Bruins can afford Miller as a seventh defenseman (Rink Rap would not be surprised even to see him skate at right wing in a few early-season games just to get a feel for what he can bring there, especially if the Bruins are on the road against a team loading up fighters now that Shawn Thornton is gone).



8. Warsofsky: Played like an NHLer during the AHL playoffs last spring. Rink Rap believes that the Bruins would have survived the Canadiens had he been on that second pairing instead of Matt Bartkowski. It doesn't matter because the Bruins weren't going to contend for the Cup once Andrej Meszaros was deemed an extra. He was their only shot at tempering the error-prone play by too many young Ds in that round or further rounds. How could one player (Seidenberg) turn the Bruins from champs to chumps? It wasn't just him, the Bruins lost Andrew Ference and McQuaid, too. It was too much all at once. But Warsofsky is an NHL player now, and Bruins fans are about to see him try out in the role Krug has owned the past two seasons.



9. Bartkowski: Big, strong guy with a straightaway stride so explosive that P-Bruins coach Bruce Cassidy (himself a former first-round pick as an offensive defenseman) compared it to Paul Coffey's. And Bartkowski's physical enough, too. It's hockey sense that will dog him. Money puckers want him when they see that plus-minus from last season, even in the playoffs. His $1.2M one-way contract will be considered friendly on the trade market. He is not a candidate to replace Krug so, being a left-sider, the Bruins have the choice of keeping him and his more-expensive deal and trying to make him into a powerplay-type guy even though Cassidy told Rink Rap over a year ago that the Bruins don't see him that way, or trade him. His one-way contract puts him on an NHL cap this season. Boston cannot afford it to be theirs unless they trade Boychuk and slide Seidenberg to the right side — Seids is the one veteran they could slide across without concern. Bartkowski was in the 2013 deadline trade for Iginla that the winger called off; it'll come as a major surprise if the Bruins build a future with him now.



Is it possible that Bart stays, that Krug goes to Russia, that Miller moves up and McQuaid stays? Lots of scenarios are possible, but here's the likely one:



33 Chara "¦ 27 Hamilton



44 Seidenberg "¦ 55 Boychuk



47 Krug "¦ 54 McQuaid



Scratch: 86 Miller



Mick Colageo covers hockey for The Standard-Times. Contact him at mcolageo@s-t.com, visit Rink Rap at blogs.southcoasttoday.com/bruins and follow on Twitter @MickColageo.