Bourque knew the exact feeling
As the offseason months passed, Ray Bourque was like a lot of Bruins fans, thinking, hoping, that maybe Patrice Bergeron was using the time to gear up mentally for a 20th season.
But when the decision came, and Bergeron called it fini, Bourque well understood what the veteran center was thinking after playing in upward of 1,500 NHL games.
“I knew exactly how he was feeling when you come to that decision,” said Bourque, a slightly older 40 years old when he called it quits in the summer of 2001.
“I averaged the most minutes out of anybody my last year, 39 years old, was up for a Norris [Trophy] and had another $6 million on the table to go back the next year — but I knew, mentally, to get back to where you need to get back to...”
He knew it would have meant another full summer of training, said Bourque, followed by the “whole grind of the season, and the playoffs.” All in all, just too high a toll, on body and mind, for a man of a certain age and service.
“And you are [training] different, you’re taking different routes,” noted Bourque, now 62 and immersed in the restaurant business as owner/operator of “Tresca” in the North End.
“Your thinking’s the same, but the body’s not reacting the same way and you know it’s not going to get any better.”
Bourque finally won the Cup in the spring of ’01 with the Avalanche, what was career game No. 1,826 for the highest point-producer among all blue liners in NHL history.
In what might be a surprise to some, Bourque’s decision to retire would have been the same even if he had not won the Cup that spring.
“No, too hard, mentally you’re not feeling it,” he recalled. ‘I went out there [traded from the Bruins], 38 years old, to see if I had something left . . . all that . . . and had fun with a great team, but ...no.”
Immediately following Bourque’s trade from Boston in March 2000, then Avalanche GM Pierre Lacroix, noted Bourque, wanted to add two years to his contract. Bourque insisted he wanted only one year, for that 2000-01 season.
“He said, ‘No, two years, I’m going to pay you $5 million for this year, and $6 million year No. 2,’ ” said Bourque. “Then he said, ‘If you don’t play the second year, I’ll give you a million.’ So that was it.”
Watching Bergeron all these years here, said Bourque, was to watch “the perfect player.”
“Nothing he did was thought about lightly,” he said. “How he played. How he prepared.
“How he treated people . . . just an amazing, amazing person and player. We’ve all been very lucky to watch this kid play for 19 years.”
Loose pucks
In the hours leading up to the June draft, Sweeney cautioned a Globe reporter who surmised Swayman was in line for a “good bump” in salary that could put a pinch on the club’s cap. “Again,” he said, “in all due respect with everyone doing their own research, you do need to be a little careful with what your comp [comparable salary] and what the rules state a comp is, so . . . [Assistant GM] Evan [Gold] does a lot of work on that regard.” The Bruins knew that their $2 million arbitration offer would not get it done. It is standard practice to lowball at the table. But the award at $3.475 million had to be some $500K-$800K higher than their projections . . . Similar to his Western Michigan role, Bussi was the No. 1 workhorse in Providence, playing in 32 regular-season games and then starting all four postseason games last season. Fifth-year pro Kyle Keyser went 13-6-2 in his 24 games. Keith Kinkaid, flipped to the Avalanche at the trade deadline, was 8-7-4 in his 20 games . . . The 2001 Norris winner, denying Bourque the sixth of his career? Detroit’s Nicklas Lidstrom, his first of three in a row. The great Red Wing backliner finished with seven and Bourque with five, the last of which was in ’94 . . . As the weekend arrived, David Krejci had yet to announce whether he intends to return to the Bruins for another season. As he cleaned out his locker May 2, the wizardly pivot said he would play again here or call it a career, not enticed to play another season in Czechia. He would be the No. 1 option on the power-play bumper with Bergeron gone. Sweeney would have to do some wizardly work himself to make the numbers fit.