Boston Bruins forward David Krejci remarkably returned to the NHL and reached 1,000 career games. How lucky are the Bruins to have him back?
Imagine you’re a marathon runner and a damned good one at that. Then, imagine you decide to take a year away from elite-level competition and, instead, run races in your neighborhood. Then, imagine you decide to return to top-level running, and you’re trying to regain the pace and demands that come with competing with the best runners in the world.
Surely, you must know a comeback at the peak level of your sport will not be easy. But you’re a gamer, a driven, hungry performer. And, as you return, you immediately prove you’re as good as you ever were.
This is the story of Boston Bruins veteran center David Krejci. At age 35, the Czechia native chose to play the 2021-22 season in his homeland’s Czech Extraliga, stepping away from the NHL with no guarantee of a return to the B’s.
Krejci thrived in the Czech Extraliga, posting 20 goals and 46 points in 51 games for Olomouc. But he decided he wasn’t finished with NHL hockey, signing a one-year, $1-million, performance-bonus-laden contract with the Bruins this past summer. And, amazingly, he’s picked up exactly where he left off in hockey’s ultimate league, posting 11 goals and 34 points in 38 games with the Bruins this season.
That pace puts Krejci on track to generate 22 goals and 69 points – numbers that would beat his 2020-21 NHL totals of eight goals and 44 points in 51 games. Krejci’s current pace on offense would give him his best goal total since the 2016-17 campaign, when he put up 23 goals in 82 games. That’s impressive.
But he’s also shown a flair for the dramatic, as we saw Monday night when Krejci played the 1,000th regular-season game of his NHL career: in just 14:48 of ice time against the Philadelphia Flyers, he generated three assists in a 6-0 victory for Boston. Two of those assists came on the Bruins’ first two goals, and two of the three assists were primary helpers.
Krejci is a low-key personality, but the high-flying Bruins wouldn’t be nearly as dangerous without him. He’s Boston’s second-line pivot, with a Stanley Cup championship pedigree and a sense of calm and collected-ness every time he steps onto the ice. And for him to reach the 1,000-game plateau after taking a year off from NHL hockey is rather remarkable.
It’s unclear if Krejci will be back with the Bruins for the 2023-24 season. Perhaps he’s tied to the future of No. 1 center Patrice Bergeron, who is also signed only for the current season. If that’s true, and Bergeron and Krejci retire at the end of this year, Boston will be hard-pressed to replace what the duo brings to the table. But neither Krejci nor Bergeron are thinking that far ahead. They’re focused on making the Bruins a force to reckon with now, and they’re having incredible success as individuals and huge parts of the team.
Go back 999 games in his NHL career, and Krejci was an unknown-quantity, second-round draft pick who played just 2:07 in his first career game before suffering a concussion in his third shift. Few then imagined Krejci would evolve into what he is today – an indispensable component of a team that is the very best in the league. He may not be a Hockey Hall-of-Famer, but he’s a Cup-winner and a Bruins Hall-of-Famer, whenever the organization decides to create that honor.
You needn’t make the loudest noise on the ice to be an effective competitor. You also don’t have to run an NHL marathon every year to step back on the ice and be an impact player once again. Krejci has proven both those things this season and throughout his 15-season NHL career. He’s amassed 538 assists and 764 points in 1,000 games, and he’s got a Cup ring demonstrating his worth to the team and the city. Boston fans and the Bruins organization know how valuable he really is.