For them, no place like home
David Krejci and Patrice Bergeron
left the game as members of an elite Black and Gold club.
Krejci finished with 1,032 regularseason games and Bergeron with 1,294, the two joining Wayne Cashman
(1,027) as the only players to reach the 1,000-game plateau and play their careers exclusively with the Bruins.
Ray Bourque (1,518), John Bucyk (1,436), Don Sweeney (1,052), and Zdeno Chara (1,023) all played more than 1,000 for the Bruins, but also played for other clubs before and/or after their Boston tenures.
Krejci was asked this past Tuesday, during his farewell news conference, if playing his 1,000-plus games carried extra meaning because they were all with the Bruins.
“That’s a good question,” he said. ”Because people keep telling me, you know, you played 1,000 games for just one franchise, that’s amazing. And I understand that, but I don’t think it has sunk in, what an accomplishment that actually is. I guess I’ll realize it later, once I am years retired and I will hear people talking about it. But I do take pride in playing 1,000 games, playing for the Bruins organization this many years. But you’ve got to be lucky. You’ve got to be healthy. There’s so many things that go into playing 1,000 games.
“The Bruins kept believing in me. They kept bringing me back. They kept offering me contracts and I just can’t thank them enough that I was able to come back and play 1,000 games for one franchise.”
In the century-plus history of the NHL, 382 players have reached the 1,000-game plateau. Bruins forwards Brad Marchand (947) and James van Riemsdyk (940) could join the ranks this season.
As for those to reach the mark and play exclusively for one team, Bergeron, Cashman, and Krejci are in a club that totals only 44 players, and only 16 others did it with Original Six teams:
Boston (3) — Bergeron, Cashman, Krejci.
Chicago (4) — Stan Mikita, Bob Murray, Brent Seabrook, Jonathan Toews.
Detroit (5) — Alex Delvecchio, Nicklas Lidstrom, Tomas Holmstrom, Steve Yzerman, Henrik Zetterberg.
Montreal (4) — Jean Beliveau, Bob Gainey, Claude Provost, Henri Richard.
New York (1) — Rod Gilbert.
Toronto (2) — George Armstrong, Ron Ellis.
Loose pucks
The Rangers have yet to come to terms on a contract extension with Alexis Lafreniere, viewed as a potential generational talent when chosen No. 1 in the 2020 draft. His impact (216 games, 91 points) has been somewhat subdued in his first three seasons. Thus far, the primo pick in that draft has been German-born forward Tim Stutzle, who went No. 3 to Ottawa and leads the draft class with 177 points (producing at a rate of .843 points per game). In the combined draft classes of 2018, 2019, and 2020, only two players, both named Hughes, have outproduced Stutzle. Jack Hughes, selected No. 1 by the Devils in 2019, has delivered at a .848 rate, and brother Quinn Hughes, the defenseman chosen No. 7 in 2018 by the Canucks, has clicked for .852 . . . Goalie Martin Jones, Bruins property for a fleeting moment eight years ago, hooked on as a backup with the Maple Leafs, a one-year deal for $875,000. Jones, 33, was 27-13-3 last season and a big part of why the Kraken made the playoffs for the first time. Acquired from the Kings in the June 2015 swap that sent Milan Lucic to LA, Jones’s asking price was too high for the Bruins’ liking, leading to a deal four days later with San Jose that netted Sean Kuraly and the Round 1 pick the Bruins used to select Trent Frederic ... Alex Ovechkin, while home in Russia this summer, told Sport-Express that he expects new coach Spencer Carbery to change up the look of the Capitals’ power play. The PP went somewhat stale under coach
Peter Laviolette, who now is charge of the Rangers. Carbery, 41, spent the 2017-18 AHL season as an assistant on
Jay Leach’s Providence staff. Carbery most recently spent two years as a Leafs assistant, following a three-year hitch as the AHL Hershey bench boss. The Capitals should be back into a heated Eastern mix for a wild-card playoff spot. They were crushed by injury last season, including a skull fracture and severed temporal artery for John Carlson, forcing the Natick-born blue liner to miss half the season. Carlson, 33, has played 927 games, all with the Capitals ... Pat Maroon, oft-rumored to be swapped to the Bruins during his career, landed this offseason with the Wild, swapped from the Lightning with prospect Max Cajkovic for a Round 7 draft pick in 2024. For the Bolts, it cleared $800,000 of Maroon’s $1 million off their cap, and it took two bodies off their 50-man roster. Maroon has worked for fairly low-budget wages throughout his career, but he arrives in St. Paul with three Cup rings, one earned in St. Louis and two in Tampa. The journey sometimes brings awards greater than the paycheck . . . Krejci said Tuesday he would consider a midseason return to a European team, viewing it as a tuneup for an April-May run with Team Czechia in the World Championship to be played in Prague. A good bet that Euro team would be in Czechia. Krejci is good pals with Petr Dedek, who owns the team in Pardubice (home to Tomas Nosek and Dominik Hasek). Krejci’s hometown pal
Petr Vrana, age 38 and once a Devils prospect, is about to start his sixth season with Trinec.