According to two sources close to the situation, longtime Boston Bruins center David Krejci could be announcing his retirement soon.
“Yeah, nothing is absolute, but that’s where he is leaning towards,” a source close to the 37-year-old center told Boston Hockey Now on Thursday morning.
That came after an NHL source tapped into the situation told Boston Hockey Now ‘He’s retiring’ on Wednesday night.
As the first source quoted here pointed out, nothing is ‘absolute,’ and the last offseason was a perfect example of that. At this time last year, both David Krejci and Boston Bruins captain Patrice Bergeron were in the same situation as unrestricted free agents and uncertain of their situation. The longtime 1-2 punch up the middle and key cog in the team’s leadership core wound up signing one-year, bonus-laden contracts on August 8, but multiple sources later confirmed to BHN that their decisions were made before NHL free agency, which kicked off on July 28 last year.
With the NHL Draft next Wednesday-Thursday in Nashville and NHL free agency now back to its original July 1 start, its believed that there was a mutual understanding between the two centers and the team that a decision sometime next week would be beneficial to all, but no firm deadline was set.
Krejci, who has spent his entire NHL career with the Boston Bruins, acknowledged that he could be hanging them up after the Bruins blew a 3-1 series lead in the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs and lost to the Florida Panthers in seven games.
“I have lost some tough years before, but this one I would put probably right next to 2019,” David Krejci admitted back on May 2. “This one’s going to hurt. Then you have another thing: That could’ve been my last game. There’s just lots of emotions. I don’t even like to talk about it, because we have talked about it with lots of guys in the last couple days.”
However, Krejci made it very clear that he would only play for the Boston Bruins if he didn’t retire.
“No, it’s either come back [to the Bruins] or be done,” Krejci replied when asked if he would still play in Czechia even if he didn’t return to the Bruins. “If I come back, it would be [in the] NHL. I did what I did last year and I’m happy I did that. No regrets. But I closed the door, so I will make a decision soon. It would be NHL [and] obviously be the Bruins.”
Right now, it appears he’s going to close the door on a brilliant career, but again, things can change, and Krejci surely showed he could still play last season with 16 goals and 40 assists in 70 regular season games, and a goal and three assists while battling an injury in four playoff games.
Stay tuned. …
More must-reads: