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As the Boston Bruins prepare for what should be a busy week and change before the 2015 NHL Draft in Sunrise, Fla., general manager Don Sweeney has taken care of two in-house contracts with the re-upping of two Providence Bruins mainstays from a season ago. Both gritty forward Tyler Randell and defenseman Tommy Cross have been retained by the B’s, with each signing a one-year, two-way contract worth $600,000 at the National Hockey League level earlier today.
For Cross, the contract means that the 25-year-old will return to Providence to don the Spoked-P for the fifth straight season, and likely as the club’s captain (Cross served as an alternate this past season).
Cross, originally drafted by the Bruins with the 35th overall pick in 2007 (taken nine picks before future Montreal superstar defender P.K. Subban), has spent his entire pro career with the B’s organization, recording eight goals and 40 points in 153 games for the P-Bruins.
Before his tenure with the P-Bruins, Cross, a Connecticut native, spent four years at Boston College. In four seasons with the Eagles, Cross won two National Championships (in 2010 and 2012), and served as an alternate captain as a junior and the team’s captain in his senior season.
In Randell, the Bruins are keeping one of their grittier, more aggressive forwards in the organizational fold. But along with a team-high 120 minutes in penalties this past season, the 6-foot-1 Randell scored a pro career high 11 goals and 20 points in 74 games played. Randell has skated in 170 career regular season games for the P-Bruins, tallying 17 goals, 16 assists and 314 penalty minutes in that span.
The 24-year-old was originally drafted by the Bruins in the sixth-round of the 2009 NHL Draft (176th overall), and spent his junior career between the Belleville Bulls and the Kitchener Rangers.
It’s unlikely that these signings mean much of anything in regards to the status of the Bruins in Boston, but it could also be an indicator that a forward like Seth Griffith is on his way up to Boston on a full-time job, or that the same can be said for Joe Morrow or Zach Trotman. Keeping a player like Cross or Randell would keep a ‘veteran Providence talent’ in the fold for Bruce Cassidy’s squad.
On the farm, the Bruins are still without decisions on pending free agents Matt Lindblad, Justin Florek, and David Warsofsky among other notables.
Ty Anderson has been covering the Boston Bruins for HockeyBuzz.com since 2010, is a member of the Pro Hockey Writers Association's Boston Chapter, and can be contacted on Twitter, or emailed at Ty.AndersonHB[at]gmail.com