Usually, I applaud teams for signing young core players for multiple years, allowing a successful team (in this case, a Stanley Cup winning team) to maintain chemistry and consistency. And there is no doubting the deals signed by Tyler Seguin (six years, $34 million), Brad Marchand (four years, $18 million) and Milan Lucic (three years, $18 million) looked great on paper for the stability of the Boston Bruins and their championship aspirations.

However, these contracts now should be taken with a giant bag of salt grains, not just because of the lockout but because Bruins’ owner Jeremy Jacobs is one of the loudest voices at the table advocating a lockout and decrease in player salaries.

Yes, you read that correctly. The owner who can afford to sign off on $70 million worth of contracts just days before the league locked out its’ players, is crying about the owners not making enough money.

The owner who just agreed to give Lucic $6 million per season, wants salaries scaled back.

The owner who agreed to give Seguin a six-year deal, wants contracts capped at five years, and wants limits placed on the first contract signed after the entry level contract expires.

The owner who is one of the vocal leaders inside the board of governors meetings indicating that the teams are not making enough money, happens to own a team worth an estimated $325 million according to Forbes. The same owner is deemed to be worth approximately $2.7 billion according to the same website.

How is it good business to tell some of your best employees that you will reward them, only to be desperately finding ways to cut their new salaries behind their backs?

And when they don’t agree to the pay cut, you tell them they can’t work at all until they agree. Effectively eliminating a year off of this new agreement you offered them and saving you a tonne of money in the process.

Could this not breed resentment, disloyalty and a broken trust that may never be repaired? If you were an employee, would you want to go back to work for the same boss if they pulled this stunt on you, regardless of how good the benefits (winning, history, location) were?

Sure, the new contracts of Seguin, Marchand and Lucic looked completely rational and beneficial in print, and would have been deserving of an ‘A’ Grade all around. But when you see that these were signed with the owner’s fingers crossed behind his back, it can only leave you shaking your head.

Grade for Seguin, Marchand & Lucic: Incomplete

Grade for Boston: Incomprehensible