After signing defenseman Johnny Boychuk to a three year extension the other day, the Bruins have now offered contract extensions to four impensing UFA's: Chris Kelly, Greg Campbell, Shawn Thornton, and Daniel Paille. The report never made it into the TSN Insider Trading Post by Bob McKenzie, but it was tweeted shortly afterwards by McKenize himself.
This is good news. After locking up Krejci, Peverley, and Boychuk, many fans were beginning to wonder if they would extend their other UFA's, most importantly center Chris Kelly, who has become an integral part of the team's identity as a gritty, hard working team. Kelly had previously stated publicly that he wants to stay in Boston, and this contract offer shows that the Bruins want to keep him in Boston.
What this also shows is that the Bruins have completely changed their organizational philosophy from the pre-lockout one. They like to lock up their guys beforehand, and the guys that don't accept extension offers end up walking. This shows that the team wants to know ahead of free agency what holes they'll need to fill over the summer and how much money they'll have to work with. It's a smart thing to do. Not many GM's can sit through an entire season and wait until the last minute to try and re-sign the players they want to keep, mostly because they'll end up overpaying and possibly filling holes that don't even need to be filled to begin with.
Details of the offers have not been released and are not known, and they most likely will not be known until the players accept or deny their respective offers.
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