Defenseman Andy Wozniewski to a one-year contract earlier today. Wozniewski, 29, was in the St. Louis Blues and Pittsburgh Penguins organizations last season playing for their AHL teams. He had 3 goals and 18 assists in the AHL last season. He played one game in the NHL with the Blues.

The Bruins probably wanted to add a little more depth behind the big six (Zdeno Chara, Dennis Wideman, Andrew Ference, Derek Morris, Matt Hunwick and Mark Stuart) in Boston. Johnny Boychuck should be on the cusp of being the seventh defenseman in Boston (read: healthy scratch, plays when needed). However, there is risk recalling and re-assigning Boychuk to/from Providence. Boychuk could be plucked off waivers. Wozniewski gives Providence a little more depth on their defense.

It looks like Wozniewski was skating with the Chicago Blackhawks in their informal workouts.

One standout was Buffalo Grove native Andy Wozniewski. I had not seen him up close before today, and that's one big defenseman. At 6 feet, 5 inches and 220 pounds, he can't hide. Wozniewski is a journeymen who was traded in March from St. Louis to Pittsburgh for former Hawk (coincidentally, also a Buffalo Grove native) Danny Richmond. He reminds you that guys that can play the game at a high level at that size don't grow on trees. It's probably a reason he's still hanging around after not being drafted.

Depth is always a good thing to have. A team can never have enough of it because injuries always happen.

(Did you think I meant the Bruins signed Phil Kessel? Sorry.)

The Bruins Wives’ Charity Carnival was today. I attended the early bird session. There was a new VIP session before that included breakfast and all the autographs you wanted, plus first access to all of the activities during the session. (If anybody attended that and wants to share their experience, I’d love to hear it!)

The gates opened late, similar to last year. It also seemed more crowded on the ice level than usual, while on the concourse there were a few players, Bobby Allen and Matt Lashoff, mixed among the two handfuls of Providence Bruins in attendance. The Providence Bruins threw me off. Wacey Rabbit was the first Providence Bruin I saw and I didn’t realize it was him until I saw more Providence Bruins around.

I wasn’t as active as previous years. My first stop was the locker room where I witnessed the assistant coaches giving permission for some kids to stand behind Alex Auld’s and Tim Thomas’s goalie pads for a picture moment. I did get my picture taken with Shawn Thornton in the penalty box. The last time I sat in the penalty box was with Ken Belanger.

I mostly roamed around the main level, watching the players interact and giggling at Tuukka Rask wearing pads and goalie mask while kids shot balls at him. Rabbit was at Dance Dance Revolution. Milan Lucic was manning the Guitar Hero game. Marco Sturm was also at a video game. Dennis Wideman was playing ping pong. Mark Stuart was in the dunk tank until hypothermia started to set in. Phil Kessel was at the NESN booth with Kathryn Tappen.

One thing that surprised me was how there were volunteers giving away FREE TICKETS to Tuesday’s night game against the Carolina Hurricanes right after you entered the gates. Giving away free tickets to everybody who paid attention (and wanted them) as they walked into the Carnival is crazy. (I’m not sure if they did it for the general session also.)

And it’s sad that the Bruins are at the extremes of handing out their own tickets to get people to go to the games.

I will be recapping the previous two home (wins) games tomorrow, both I was in attendance for.

If you went to the Carnival, feel free to share experiences in the comments.

Here's a sad fact: I will be working half of the weekend, if not 75% of it. So I won't be able to update until late Sunday night or Monday. There's your reason for not visiting the website for a day.

Tim Thomas will be starting in goal for the Bruins tonight against Montreal.

Defenseman Matt Hunwick was recalled. Aaron Ward skated this morning, but Andrew Ference (knee sprain) is out.

Providence goaltender Jordan Sigalet should be okay after his collapse last night.

Go Bruins! (Can we please beat Montreal once this season?)

The Providence Bruins were playing tonight against the Worcester Sharks. In the third period, goalie Jordan Sigalet collapsed in the crease.

While the action in the American Hockey League game was well up ice, Sigalet fell face first and lie on the ice. It took several seconds before the officials and teams realized the 26-year-old was in danger and stopped the game. Play was delayed several minutes as Sigalet, who has Multiple Sclerosis, was immobilized and taken off the ice on the stretcher.

It was the first such episode of Sigalet’s professional career.

The 5-foot-11, 165-pound goalie appeared conscious as he was wheeled to a waiting ambulance dispatched by Rhode Island Hospital. No word was available as to his condition. P-Bruins coach Scott Gordon confirmed after the game that Sigalet was conscious.

My thoughts and prayers are with Jordan. Hopefully everything turns out okay.

(Credit to the HF Boards for the thread that gave me the heads up.)

The first round of cuts took place tonight. Players that were assigned to Providence were Chris Collins and Mike Brown. Tryout players Daryl Boyle, Reid Jorgensen, and Jamison Orr were invited to Providence's training camp.

Jordan Knackstedt, Denis Reul, Radim Ostrcil, and Adam Courchaine were all sent to their junior teams.

I have been editing photos all afternoon, and have Friday's photos on the site. They will start to get captioned once I finish editing Saturday's photos, which will also be up tonight. Yesterday's photos will be edited, and will probably make it on the site sometime tomorrow tonight. All photos will be captioned tomorrow.

And of course I will add some recaps to previous posts once I finish writing them. There is only so much multi-tasking a computer (and myself) can do.