Bruins use loophole in Savard’s contract?

Another week and another NHL team blatantly plowed through a CBA loophole in order to circumvent the salary cap.

And no, we’re not talking about the Chicago Blackhawks, who signed three players – including defenceman Duncan Keith – to multi-year contract extensions Thursday worth a cool $135-million in total. The NHL gave the deals, including Keith’s 13-year extension, its blessing – which is not to say that the Blackhawks are in the clear on the Marian Hossa extension signed this summer.

Keith’s $72-million contract received the OK, after it had been vetted by the league and tweaked so that the dollars at the back end are defensible.

Instead, the contract that the league will scrutinize is the seven-year, $28.5 million extension signed by Marc Savard with the Boston Bruins.

On the surface, it looked as if Savard granted the Bruins a large home-town discount.

After all, in today’s marketplace, an average annual salary of just over $4 million is relatively modest for a player that – when healthy – averages more than a point per game.

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