On the same night that another team raised the Stanley Cup, the Bruins made two moves to keep members of their Cup-winning team in Boston. 

The B’s inked centers Chris Kelly and Gregory Campbell to multi-year deals, giving Kelly $12 million over four years and Campbell $4.8 million over three years. Kelly’s the real get, as it keeps the team’s best unrestricted free agent from hitting the open market. 

While it’s no surprise that the Bruins would want both players to return next season, B’s fans should take note of the of the numbers for both deals. An annual cap hit of $1.6 million for Campbell is very fair given how important the team’s fourth line is, but $3 million each year for Kelly is the real bargain.

The versatile Kelly, who plays on the Bruins' third line but has handled first-line duties when called upon, is coming off a career year in which he scored 20 goals for the first time while totaling a personal-best 39 points. The fact that he took this deal without even seeing what he could get on the open market suggests he didn’t have any intentions of leaving Boston, but that isn't a major shock given how well he's fit in with the organization and city since being acquired last February. 

If Kelly is able to score 20 goals regularly over the course of his deal, it could go down as one of general manager Peter Chiarelli’s better signings. In reality, the scoring from Kelly is just gravy on top of what makes him so valuable to the B’s. His two-way play fits perfectly in Claude Julien’s system, he kills penalties (as does Campbell) and is enough of a leader that the team had no problem giving him an ‘A’ after he had only played four months for the team. 

With each signing the Bruins made during the regular season (David Krejci, Rich Peverley, Shawn Thornton, Johnny Boychuk), the fan reaction was the same each time: “Good, now sign Kelly.” Chiarelli said after the Thornton signing in March that the team wasn’t going to sign any more of its impending free agents during the season, and the fact that Kelly could probably get more on the open market gave Bruins fans reason enough to worry. In the end, both sides got what they wanted: Kelly got to stay and the Bruins got a bargain. 

If the time on ice wasn’t a good enough indication of how much the Bruins value their fourth line, this offseason has driven that point home. In the past two weeks, the Bruins have given out three-year deals to two fourth-liners in Campbell and Daniel Paille (three years, $1.9 million). The fourth line of the last season and a half will return to Boston next season, as Thornton was also kept around with a two-year, $2.2 million extension that he inked in March. 

Both Paille and Campbell’s deals have taken second billing on the days of their signings (Paille’s extension was overshadowed two weeks ago by the news that Tim Thomas had told the Bruins he’d likely be taking the year off, while Campbell’s deal was signed the same day as Kelly’s), but the importance of the fourth line isn’t lost on the Bruins. Despite their struggles at points (including the playoffs) this past season, the trio showed emphatically in 2010-11 that they can impact games in ways most fourth lines can’t. Don't forget, it was their shift in the first period of Game 7 of the Stanley Cup finals that shifted momentum in Boston's favor after the Canucks came out flying.

The deal also confirms Chris Bourque, who was signed to a one-year deal the same day that the B’s inked Paille, should probably start looking for an apartment in Providence for the coming year. He was a long shot to make the Bruins’ NHL roster this season anyway, but with all three members of the fourth-line locked up, his best chance at making the B’s this year will be as the extra forward. 

These signings aren’t just about the bottom-six forwards, of course. The fact that Kelly is back all but rules out the possibility of Tyler Seguin playing center in the near future. Seguin was drafted as a center, but has played right wing for the vast majority of his NHL career thus far. He led the team in scoring last season while playing wing on Patrice Bergeron’s line, and with all four of the team’s forwards signed for the next two years (Krejci, Kelly and Campbell are all signed for at least the next three), you can now bet with a little more confidence that Seguin will be sticking at wing.

Speaking of the youngsters, both Kelly and Campbell returning means that there also won't be much room for a prospect like Jared Knight or Ryan Spooner to make the team out of training camp this season. Benoit Pouliot's future has yet to be determined (he's a restricted free agent after playing last season on a one-year deal), so that other wing spot on the third line with Kelly and Peverley will likely be manned by Jordan Caron or Pouliot next season. 

In the last two weeks, the Bruins have taken care of three players that were set to hit the open market. Their biggest remaining player to take care of is Tuukka Rask, as the restricted free agent needs a new deal before he begins life as the team’s No. 1 goaltender. 

Chiarelli said at the team’s breakup day in April that he wasn’t anticipating significant changes to the roster. While the Thomas news forced a major change, Chiarelli has stayed true to his word by keeping the core and the complementary pieces together. This might not go down as the flashiest offseason for Chiarelli, but so far he’s done what he can to keep that Cup-winning roster from looking too different.