It was no sure thing that the classy Bruins center would play again this season, and his talent and leadership have been instrumental in the team's historic start.
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This was back in early June, back when Patrice Bergeron hadn’t yet decided whether he would play this season. As he spoke on a Zoom call to accept his fifth career Selke Trophy — most in NHL history — it was pretty obvious that the hockey world believed he had the skills to keep on going. But the veteran Bruins center wasn’t yet ready to commit to a 19th year on NHL ice.
As Bergeron spoke about weighing his decision, it was something he said about the start of his career, when he was not yet out of his teens and just hoping to hang on at the pro level, that resonates so loudly now, now that the 37-year-old is off to one of the best starts of his long, heralded career.
“My first few years, I was just happy to be here, just wanted to find a way to stick around for a couple more years, to learn, be a sponge with everything so new and incredible, really,” he said. “As the years progress, I realize how lucky we are, how fast it goes, and that it’s important to be thankful and appreciate every moment.”
Bergeron was speaking for himself, but he might just as well be speaking for us: As the years progress, we realize how lucky we’ve been to watch him play, how fast it’s all gone from that teenage debut, and that we are thankful and appreciative for every moment he’s authored, from Stanley Cup glory to his class as the Bruins captain.
As he continues to tear into the 2022-23 season, it’s clear he is not only back, but back and better than ever, leading the Bruins to a historic start with his extraordinary combination of on-ice skill and off-ice leadership.
A word of advice: Don’t miss it.
Like those career lions and icons before him, Bergeron has carved an indelible Boston legacy, in the same class with contemporaries such as Tom Brady (whose departure to Tampa left Bergeron as the Hub’s longest-tenured athlete) and Zdeno Chara (whose exit left the captain’s C for Bergeron to stitch on), but just as much with all-timers such as Orr, Bird, Russell, Yaz, and Teddy.
This season feels like such a bonus, with Bergeron already reminding us of the many and varied characteristics that make him special. Three goals in the last two games and eight overall with seven assists is the impressive statistical measure, highlighted by the nifty hand-eye coordination that started and ended the clinching sequence in Sunday’s 5-2 win over Vancouver or the effort play that kept the puck in the attacking zone and led to Taylor Hall’s OT goal against the Wild in late October.
But this season will be remembered as much for Bergeron’s important stand against the signing of Mitchell Miller, a junior player with a troubling past of racist and bullying behavior toward a developmentally disabled classmate or for his recent touching interaction with young Buffalo center Tage Thompson. Initially lauded as a nod to one of the game’s rising stars, whom Bergeron has known since playing with Tage’s father during the lockout season in Providence, the on-ice meeting proved to be much more, with the Buffalo News reporting it was Bergeron checking on the health of Tage’s wife, who’d battled cancer.
He’s like a gift that keeps on giving.
Bergeron signed a team-friendly (of course) one-year deal ($2.5 million in base salary, $2.5 million in performance bonuses) to play this season, a decision with so many ancillary benefits, including inducing the return of David Krejci from his one-year European hiatus. But with the one-year deal comes the same potential reality that hovered over the end of last year’s truncated playoff run. At this point, every season could be Bergeron’s last, so we savor every shift.
At the center of it all — literally and figuratively — is Bergeron. He is the faceoff stalwart, the penalty killer, the do-everything man. Three more points and it’s 1,000 for his career. He’s one of the best shows in town.
It was August when Bergeron made that decision to return, a simple explanation saying it all.
“It’s an organization that means the world to me,” he said. “Boston is my home.”
