Wardo: The Return (to Carolina)

Well, something had to give. The Bruins traded Aaron Ward for the 2010 4th-round pick and Patrick Eaves, who they immediately waived.

Aaron Ward will be missed in Boston, both on the blue line and on the air, as his weekly call-in to toucher and rich was usually quite funny.

We'll miss you, Aaron.

Now on to the important part: Aaron Ward was the third-highest paid Defenseman on the team, behind Chara and Wideman. His cap hit was 2.5 Million. With this trade and waiving, that's going to clear up a total of about 5.3 Million in cap space, which should be enough to pay Kessel and get another crappy defenseman in. But the bruins would be very weak on defense and strong on offense in that case. So with that the Bruins' blue line will be, in no particular order:
Chara, Wideman, Hunwick, Ference, Stuart, Boychuk? I haven't seen Boychuk play, but I assume that because we had Montador instead of him in Boston he's not as good as Montador, so...

Of course, they could always go back to that Kessel for Kaberle trade with the Leafs. Assuming Chiarelli still has Burke on hold. I might be okay with that.

I wish they would just sign Kessel or move him or something, waiting is the hardest part.

69 days until we see the first day roster take to the ice at the Garden.

GO BRUINS!

Summertime and the living's easy

A couple of things are happening around, but not THAT much. First, I took your suggestions from the other day and put up an ad on the Scott Walker Hockey-reference.com page. Go check it out!

Second, last night was the 500th sellout at Fenway Park. Here's Jason Bay on the day:

"We got the win, but more importantly I got to meet Bobby Orr."

Wait, what?Hell yes. This is awesome. Right before the seventh, Bobby came out of the Green Monster and said hello to Jason Bay. They were apparently supposed to meet before the game, but didn't have time. This is better because we all get to see it. Sox and Dawgs has a video, to boot.

Bobby Orr smiling is one of the finer things in life. Here are some more pictures of that:The only NHL trophy Bobby Orr didn't win twice was rookie of the year.He sure did win 2 Stanley cups, though. Putting Boston in for 3rd-longest draught for cups of an original six team, in front of Toronto (1967) and Chicago (1965).Whatta Guy.

Oh, and tonight is the NHL awards show. Tim Thomas, Zdeno Chara, and Claude Julien are all in Vegas right now getting ready to maybe win the Vezina (best goalie), Norris (best defenseman - Orr had 8 of these, which still stands as an all-time record), and the Jack Adams Award (best coach), respectively. Good luck to them!

The awards show will be on Versus at 7:30 in the US, CBC at 8:30 in Canada.
GO BRUINS!