Krejci quietly in middle of Bruins success during NHL career

Nestled between Wayne Cashman and Ken Hodge on the Boston Bruins points list sits a player who has, throughout his career, been at times overlooked and undervalued, a player overshadowed by another center, a player without whom the Bruins might not have won the 2011 Stanley Cup: David Krejci.

The No. 9 scorer in Bruins history, with 786 points (231 goals, 555 assists) in 1,032 games, announced his retirement from the NHL on Monday after 16 seasons, all of them with the Bruins. The 37-year-old native of Sternberk, Czech Republic, was selected by Boston in the second round (No. 63) in the 2004 NHL Draft, made his NHL debut at 20 years old and joined the Bruins full time during the 2007-08 season for a run that saw him reach the Stanley Cup Final three times (2011, 2013, 2019) and make the Stanley Cup Playoffs in 13 seasons.

And it was there that Krejci truly shined.

As former teammate and current Bruins assistant coach Chris Kelly put it last season, "I don't have a ring without David Krejci."

When the Bruins won the Stanley Cup in 2011, defeating the Vancouver Canucks in seven games in the Cup Final, and again when the Bruins went to the Final in 2013, losing to the Chicago Blackhawks in six games, Krejci led the NHL in playoff scoring. He put up 23 points (12 goals, 11 assists) in 25 games in 2011 and 26 points (nine goals, 17 assists) in 22 games in 2013.

Which was why then-coach Claude Julien was fond of saying that as Krejci went, so did the Bruins.

"He loved those kind of situations," said Julien, who coached Krejci for his first 10 full NHL seasons (2007-17). "He seemed really happy in the playoffs. For David, the bigger the game, the more he enjoyed it and the more he enjoyed it, the better he played."

In 160 playoff games, Krejci had 128 points (43 goals, 85 assists), including four points (one goal, three assists) in four games in the 2023 postseason. He is tied with Patrice Bergeron (170 games) and Brad Marchand (146 games) for the second-most playoff points in Bruins history to Ray Bourque's 161.

"He's got ice in his veins," said former teammate Milan Lucic, who played most of his first eight NHL seasons on Krejci's wing. "When you needed a big play or a big goal or an assist on a big goal, he was right in the middle of it all."

Throughout his career, the center provided a potent 1A and 1B with Bergeron, sometimes flipping the order of which was which, and leading to much of the success for the Bruins. And they will leave the NHL together, too, with Bergeron announcing his retirement from the NHL on July 25.

"He's very similar to 'Bergy' in the sense that it's just not pure numbers that reflect his value to our team," Bruins coach Jim Montgomery said last season. "He's cool, calm, he's extremely poised. He makes passes that I don't see from the bench coming and that's a credit to his creativity but also how competitive he is. He's really competitive."

Montgomery got a chance to coach Krejci after the center returned from a season away from the NHL. After 2020-21, the center opted to head to the Czech Extraliga, where he could play in front of his family, his brother, people who had sacrificed so much for him. He didn't know if he would play in North America again.

But he did, coming back to the NHL and the Bruins for a historic season in 2022-23, when Boston set NHL records for wins (65) and points (135) in a season before losing in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference First Round to the Florida Panthers. Krejci put up 56 points (16 goals, 40 assists) in 70 games in his final NHL season, his highest point total since tying his NHL career high with 73 (20 goals, 53 assists) in 81 games in 2018-19, the last time the Bruins have reached the Stanley Cup Final.

The season, though, wore on him, with wife Naomi and his two kids, Elina and Everett, spending the year in South Carolina, where Krejci intends to live after retirement.

"I think it was one of the best years, but also one of the worst years," Krejci said after the Bruins were eliminated from the playoffs. "It was a roller coaster. … If we were not doing good, I would just pack it up and go back. From that standpoint it was tough, but coming here every day and seeing the guys just made it worth it."

After returning for last season, Krejci played his 1,000th game for the Bruins and ranks fifth in games played for them, 20 behind Boston general manager Don Sweeney. He is also fifth in assists for the Bruins with 555, 18 behind Bergeron for fourth.

But Krejci never drew attention to himself. He was content to play behind Bergeron, to support the team and, ultimately, try to win.

"He did it quietly because that's just the way he is," Julien said. "I don't think he really cared that much about how much accolades he got. He just cared about doing it and doing it right."

And few people valued playing with Krejci more than Lucic, who signed with the Bruins on July 1 after eight seasons away from Boston.

He saw the dedication and determination of Krejci firsthand as far back as 2007-08, a season when Krejci made the opening night roster but suffered a dip that resulted in him getting sent back down to Providence of the American Hockey League for most of November and December. But when Krejci returned, Lucic could see a change.

"You could see the fire in him and you could see that he was a competitor, even though he's not a rah-rah guy, he's not a guy that's yelling and screaming and saying those cliched things in the dressing room," Lucic said. "But that's where I think his game came together."

Krejci was, always, a steady presence, a cerebral player, using his vision, his hockey sense, his control of the puck and control of the play to create for others. He was dynamic defensively, too, a fact that too got lost among the six consecutive times Bergeron won the Selke Trophy after being voted as the best defensive forward in the NHL, a League record.

Krejci, though, was no less important.

As Kelly said, "He saw the game like most people see it up from the ninth floor. He'd just see two steps ahead."

That got him here, to a career among the all-time greats to wear a Bruins uniform.

"I think the No. 1 thing is his hockey sense and his ability to make everyone around him better," Lucic said. "When he has the puck on his stick and he's carrying it, whether that's through the neutral zone or controlling it in the [offenseive] zone, it's almost like he's controlling the game. A lot of people like to say he slows it down, but really he's controlling it to the pace that he wants to play at.

"You look at all the players that have had the pleasure of playing with him, they've all had really, really good years playing with him. He's a dream."