Bruins center David Krejci announced his retirement on Monday after 15 full seasons with Boston. Charles Krupa/Associated Press
This time, it really is goodbye for David Krejci.
Krejci, the Bruins’ cerebral, sublime playmaker who was known for raising his game to match the stakes, announced his retirement Monday via the team’s social media account, at the age of 37.
The centerman wrote in his farewell statement that he was retiring from “the best league in the world.” That would seem to leave open the door to playing internationally for his native country of Czechia, which he has hinted at in recent months in interviews with outlets back home. After playing a year in Czechia, Krejci returned to play one final season in Boston.
But now his days of playing in Boston are done. Coupled with the retirement of Patrice Bergeron, it marks the end of an era in Bruins’ hockey.
Since becoming a full-time NHL player with his mid-season promotion in the 2007-08 season, Krejci has been half of the Bruins’ dynamic one-two punch at center with Bergeron that delivered the club its only Stanley Cup of the past half-century in 2011 as well as two more trips to the Finals in 2013 and 2019.
A statement from David Krejci. pic.twitter.com/tVWAMsWAr8
— Boston Bruins (@NHLBruins) August 14, 2023
“When I was drafted in 2004, I had no idea that I would be working with such incredible and driven people who would lead us to 3 Stanley Cup finals, and winning the ultimate goal in 2011,” wrote Krejci. “I have made so many great friendships throughout the organization. You have always been there for me whenever I needed something and I will always be here for you.”
Krejci made an inauspicious NHL debut on Jan. 30, 2007 in Buffalo. On his third shift, the Sabres’ Adam Mair hit him with a high cheap shot that knocked him out cold. He played just six NHL games that season, but the next year he was a mid-season call-up and he stuck, playing a pivotal role in getting the Bruins to the playoffs and a dramatic seven-game series against the Montreal Canadiens. The Bruins lost that series, but a new era of Bruins hockey had been ushered in.
Krejci ranks fifth on the Bruins’ all-time list for assists with 555 to go along with his 231 goals in 1,032 career NHL games. Whether or not that’s enough to get his No. 46 raised to the rafters at TD Garden will be determined in the coming years, but there is no question the centerman had a major impact on the fortunes of the organization.
In fact, it was the loss of Krejci that led to one of the Bruins’ biggest collapses and, in turn, fueled them for their first Cup in 39 years. With the Bruins about to take a 3-0 series lead over the Philadelphia Flyers, Krejci suffered a broken wrist from a Mike Richards hit. Without Krejci in the lineup, the Bruins blew the 3-0 series lead and then a 3-0 lead in the Game 7.
The Bruins came back the next season on a mission. The newly acquired Nathan Horton was put on a power line with Krejci and Milan Lucic, and the trio rampaged through the playoffs in 2011. After the Bruins survived a series with Montreal on Horton’s Game 7 overtime winner, the Bruins avenged the loss to Philly by sweeping the Flyers with Krejci supplying among other things scoring three of the four winning goals.
The conference finals against the Tampa Bay Lightning were decided by another Game 7 in which a slick Krejci pass gave Horton a tap-in for the only goal of the taut, classic game.
His two career shining moments were in the ’11 and ’13 playoffs when he led the Bruins in scoring in both playoff runs. In the Cup-winning season, Krejci had 12-11-23 totals in 26 games and in ’13, when the Bruins lost to the Chicago Blackhawks in six games, he had 9-17-26 in 22 games.
Through no fault of his own, there is a feeling that the Bruins didn’t fully capitalize on some of the Krejci’s best years. After Horton signed with Columbus following the 2013 season and then Jarome Iginla left for Colorado after one season with the Bruins, Krejci’s right side was a revolving door of wings. When Lucic was traded to the Kings amid a cap crunch in 2015, regular linemates were hard to find.
He was a mentor to a young superstar-in-the-making, countryman David Pastrnak but he rarely got to play with him. Krejci also shepherded young Jake DeBrusk into the NHL, serving as the wing’s centerman in his rookie season and the next year when DeBrusk scored 27 goals in the third season the Bruins reached the Cup finals with Krejci.
Krejci’s highest regular season point total was 73, which he reached twice, in his first full NHL season in 2008-09 and then a decade later in 2018-19, another season in which the Bruins made it to the Cup final, losing to the St. Louis Blues in Game 7 at TD Garden.
After the 2020-21 season, Krejci decided to fulfill a career-long dream of returning to play for his hometown team Olomouc HC, allowing his young children to better understand his upbringing in Czechia. In his statement, he gave a touching tribute to his brother Zdenek.
“We dreamt the same things as kids but only one of us was fortunate to experience it. You never complained and you were never jealous of me. You were the exact opposite. I don’t think you understand how much influence you have had on my career, and for that I thank you from the bottom of my heart,” wrote Krejci.
Krejci kept the door open for a return to Boston and, after having satisfied his desire to play a season at home, he returned for one more season, for the team-friendly base salary of $1 million. It had all the makings of a dream finale to his career. With Krejci and Pastrnak playing together, not only did the Bruins set the record for regular-season wins, Krejci (16-40-56 in 70 games) helped Pastrnak become the first Bruin to hit the 60-goal mark (61) since Phil Esposito did it for the last time in 1974-75.
But as it did for fellow veteran Bergeron, Krejci’s 37-year-old body began to break down at the worst possible time. He missed the last six games of the regular season with a lower body injury and then three games in the first-round playoff series against the Florida Panthers. As this dream was unraveling into a nightmare, Krejci reached back in time in Game 7 to conjure up the “Playoff Krech” his teammates had talked about for years, scoring a goal and assisting on the two others that the Bruins scored on that crushing night at the Garden when they lost a late one-goal lead and then Florida’s Carter Verhaege won it in overtime.
It was last time we saw Krejci in a Bruin uniform, and his performance would be lost in the recriminations surrounding a massive, stunning defeat. But it served as one last taste of what Krejci, never speedy but slowed even more by years and injury, could still accomplish with his slick hands and brilliant hockey mind.
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