Be sure to 'like' Hockeybuzz on Facebook!
Next summer’s heavy, franchise-pressing to-do list just got a heck of a lot shorter for Boston Bruins general manager Peter Chiarelli. According to a Czech report, and reported by WEEI.com earlier tonight, the Bruins and top-line center David Krejci have come to terms on a six-year contract extension worth $43.5 million. The reported contract, though not confirmed yet by the Bruins, would come with a $7.25 million cap-hit.
For the Bruins, this move is a no-brainer.
Krejci has become a bonafide first-line center, a perennial playoff hero for the Black and Gold (last spring appears to be an undeniable anomaly given his resume), and would have fetched far more than that $7.25 million cap-hit on the open market had the Bruins let him test the waters of unrestricted free agency. Looking to 2015, Krejci would have been the surefire stud of the group down the middle, with only Jason Spezza coming close in terms of top-six centermen, unless you’d care to include Brad Richards and Olli Jokinen in that group (which I would not).
It’s a modest raise for Krejci, who will skate in the final year of a three-year, $15.75 million extension signed back in Dec. 2011. That deal has turned out to be a bargain for Chiarelli and company, with the Czech Olympian recording 29 goals and 102 points in 127 games since the start of that extension, along with an impressive nine goals and 30 points in 34 postseason contests since.
The deal makes Krejci the highest-paid Bruin in terms of yearly cap-hit, and gives the Bruins five players signed beyond the 2016-17 season. The other four include center Patrice Bergeron (who is the second-highest paid B’s forward at $6.5 million per year), defensemen Zdeno Chara and Dennis Seidenberg, and defending Vezina winner Tuukka Rask.
Krejci was drafted by the Bruins with the 63rd overall pick in 2004, has recorded 110 goals and 378 points in 504 career games with the club, and most famously led the 2011 playoffs in both goals (12) and points (23) en route to Boston's first Stanley Cup in 39 years.
Ty Anderson has been covering the Boston Bruins for HockeyBuzz.com since 2010, is a member of the Pro Hockey Writers Association's Boston Chapter, and can be contacted on Twitter, or emailed at Ty.AndersonHB[at]gmail.com