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By: Mark Allred  |  Follow Me On Twitter @BlackAndGold277

As the National Hockey League remains on pause without a certain point of a return due to the Covid-19 worldwide pandemic, the Boston Bruins announced today that the club has agreed to a one-year contract extension with backup goaltender Jaroslav Halak. As seen below in the notification from the Boston Bruins official Twitter account the deal is worth a salary cap hit of $2.25 million, which is a cap-friendly deal from his last contract which paid him $2.25 million per season on a two-year deal.

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For the past two seasons for the Bruins team leading up to this unfortunate stoppage in life, the 34-year-old Halak has appeared in 71 games with a record of 40-17-10 with a 2.36 goals-against-average and .921 save percentage. Out of those 71 appearances, the veteran netminder has started in 66 games for Boston when starting goaltender Tuukka Rask needed a break as the aging netminder himself seems to thrive under the 1A-1B system. Halak who continues to play for his fifth team in his NHL career has impressive numbers in his 14-year career posting a record of 272-167-58 with a 2.48 GAA and .916 Save%.

By having Halak back for another season and under what many thought he could get on the open free agent market whenever the 2019-20 offseason actually happens, this is another way Bruins General Manager Don Sweeney is a genious. By getting these players under what they want for salaries with the strong words of “winning culture” it leaves space to re-sign other free agents like UFA Torey Krug, RFA Jake DeBrusk, RFA Matt Grzelcyk and so on. This will also likely mean the services of Max Lagace in Providence have come to an end making him a free agent again whenever the season officially is over and free agency actually begins.

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By this move, it creates a solid minor-pro tandem at the American Hockey League level in Rhode Island. With Dan Vladar who was playing phenomenally from the beginning of December 2019 to the Covid-19 work stoppage, and recently signed Jeremy Sawyman who left the University of Maine to sign a three-year entry-level contract to solidify the 1-A, 1-B in Providence, Lagace at this point of skepticism seems to be the odd-man-out. Before the stoppage, Lagace had a 2019-20 regular-season record or 22-7-3 with a 2.37 GAA and .919 Save%. assuming this all comes to fruition, that would leave prospect netminder Kyle Kyser to report to the ECHL if and when a new affiliation agreement becomes official. The current one-year agreement with the “AA” minor-pro ECHL affiliate Atlanta Gladiators was officially over with the cancelation of the remaining games of the 2019-20 season.

Check out the new Black N’ Gold Hockey Podcast episode 176 that we recorded below on 4-27-20! You can find our show on many worldwide platforms such as Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, iHeart Radio, Spotify, SoundCloud, and Stitcher.

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