According to a report from the Boston Globe's Fluto Shinzawa [1], the Bruins made a push to sign Zach Parise, this summer's top free agent forward, before he took a 13-year, $98 million deal with the Wild on Wednesday. Shinzawa writes that Boston extended a "significant offer" to the former Devils captain.
Parise, 27, has scored 30 or more goals in each of his last five healthy seasons (he played in only 13 games in 2010-11) and had 31 goals and 38 assists for 69 points last season with the Devils.
The development of the Bruins making a play for Parise is rather surprising given the team's salary cap situation. With $69,922,143 dollars in payroll currently committed for the 2012-13 season, the Bruins have the least cap space in the NHL. With the salary cap recently raised to $70.2 million, the B's have $277,857 in salary cap space. They can get money back against the cap, however, by trading Tim Thomas ($5 million cap hit) or putting Marc Savard ($4.0017 million cap hit) on long-term injured reserve.
For more on the Bruins, visit weei.com/bruins [2].
Links:
[1] http://t.co/ez1cMC2A
[2] http://www.weei.com/bruins
[3] http://www.weei.com/category/boston/bruins