Bruins cut roster to 27 players, get one step closer to final roster

After the latest preseason game where the Bruins may or may not have violated the veteran minimum skaters (no word if anything came of that) the Bruins have sent down the call ups that played. From Bruins.com:

Boston Bruins Jersey General Manager Don Sweeney announced today, October 1, that the club has assigned Anton Blidh, Chris Breen, Brandon DeFazio, Brian Ferlin, Alex Khokhlachev and Ben Sexton to the Providence Bruins.

Sweeney also announced the team has placed Tommy Cross on waivers for the purpose of assignment to the Providence Bruins

This leaves the Bruins with 27 players on their NHL roster, counting Jonas Gustavsson who is still without a contract, and on a PTO, as well as injured Seth Griffith and Dennis Seidenberg. There are 15 forwards, 9 defensemen, and 3 goaltenders remaining at camp, one extra at each position usually, although Sweeney and Julien have hinted at keeping eight defensemen.

A list of the 15 Bruins forwards still at camp: Matt Beleskey, Patrice Bergeron, Brett Connolly, Loui Eriksson, Seth Griffith, Jimmy Hayes, Chris Kelly, Joonas Kemppainen, David Krejci, Brad Marchand, David Pastrnak, Tyler Randell, Zac Rinaldo, Ryan Spooner, and Max Talbot.

The 9 defensemen: Zdeno Chara, Matt Irwin, Torey Krug, Adam McQuaid, Colin Miller, Kevan Miller, Joe Morrow, Dennis Seidenberg, and Zach Trotman.

The 3 goalies: Tuukka Rask Jersey, Jeremy Smith, and Jonas Gustavsson.

If the Bruins do keep 8 defensemen, that means two of Kemppainen, Randell, Talbot, and Rinaldo will be sent down.

Griffith will most likely be placed on IR and not count as a roster spot, similar to what happened with Anthony Camara last year. I am unsure of when they would be able to send Griffith down, and will edit this when I find the right section of the CBA. I cannot find the exact verbiage in the CBA, but this article from a Florida Panthers blog, Litterbox Cats, has what I was looking for.

Injured players cannot be loaned to a minor league team before being cleared to play. However, because the waiver expiration rules are not suspended when a player is injured, if the player was already recalled from that team and waivers haven't expired, he can be returned to the minor league team, but he still receives his NHL salary until cleared to play.

Griffith does not need waivers to be sent down, so he would be able to be sent down and paid his NHL salary. In terms of how much he would be paid for the pre season, it would be a blend of his AHL salary from last year and his NHL salary from last year, on a per day basis. He made $363,257 last year, and the season was 186 days long, giving him a daily rate of roughly $1,953. Once the NHL season starts, he would get paid his full NHL salary of $759,167.

In the meantime, if you want to see where each of the players who were at camp are currently, here is a filterable google doc, with positions to help figure out where people are.