Longtime Bruins star Patrice Bergeron announces retirement

It was evident early on that Bergeron was something of a special player. Not many players drafted 45th overall take an immediate step into the NHL at the age of 18, and even fewer have as productive of a rookie season as Bergeron had.

He stepped straight into the Bruins lineup from the QMJHL and scored 16 goals and 39 points, averaging over 16 minutes per night.

By the age of 20, Bergeron had become a true top-six center in the NHL, scoring 31 goals and 73 points in his second full season. At the age of 24, Bergeron first appeared on a Selke Trophy ballot, and soon he would set the gold standard for defensive play by a center in the NHL. Bergeron’s victory in the Selke Trophy voting has been a formality for much of his career, and he finishes his playing days having won the prestigious award a record six times.

Beyond just setting the standard for two-way excellence, Bergeron has long been viewed as one of the game’s exceptional leaders. He won both the Mark Messier Leadership Award (2020-21) and King Clancy Memorial Trophy (2012-13) and was a yearly fixture on the Lady Byng Trophy ballot.

He also set the standard for work at the faceoff dot, leading the NHL in faceoff win percentage four times and posting a career 58.9% win rate.

Bergeron long served as an alternate captain for the Bruins before taking up the captain’s role after the departure of Zdeno Chara, and under his watch, the Bruins had their most successful era of hockey since Bobby Orr and Phil Esposito tore the league apart in the early 1970s. The Bruins won three Prince of Wales Trophies during Bergeron’s tenure, three Presidents' Trophies and the franchise’s first Stanley Cup since 1972.

In 2011 Bergeron truly shined, scoring 20 points in 23 playoff games, including the Stanley Cup-winning goal. While the Bruins undoubtedly would have loved to go on one last deep playoff run during Bergeron’s final season, a year where they set records for regular-season success, the organization is undoubtedly more than happy with the more than a decade of legitimate Stanley Cup contention Bergeron led it through.

Beyond just his work for the Bruins, Bergeron found success representing Canada internationally. Often forming a lethal two-way line alongside Bruins teammate Brad Marchand and superstar Sidney Crosby, Bergeron took home a gold medal at the 2014 Winter Olympics and the World Cup of Hockey in 2016.

A slam-dunk first-ballot Hall of Famer, Bergeron redefined what it meant to be a two-way center in the NHL over the course of his career. Whenever NHL Draft prospects playing center are asked whom they’d like to emulate in the NHL, Bergeron is frequently the most commonly referenced name. That’s despite the existence of centers that have long surpassed Bergeron in offensive production, such as Connor McDavid and Nathan MacKinnon.

That likely reflects something that made Bergeron truly valuable: So much of what made him special was something another player could feasibly replicate. If a player doesn’t possess the natural talent of a McDavid or a MacKinnon, expecting him to reflect those players in the NHL is impossible.

Bergeron, on the other hand, is a player whose many great qualities can be mimicked. Not only did he provide Boston with exceptional individual on-ice value, he also provided the organization with an invaluable role model for other players to follow. His relatively affordable contract extension created a team-friendly financial structure under the salary cap for the Bruins to be able to field a contending team year after year, and countless Bruins players, such as Pavel Zacha, for example, have seen their games improve under Bergeron’s wing.

Even after his retirement, Bergeron is likely to be viewed as the pinnacle of two-way excellence for centers in the NHL and will continue to be a name oft-cited by draft prospects looking to establish credibility as two-way players.

Although he leaves Boston in a relatively unclear spot down the middle (the team’s two top-six centers projected for next season are Zacha and Charlie Coyle, neither of whom has ever scored 60 points in the NHL) the franchise can ask nothing more of Bergeron, who played on a below-market $2.5M contract last season.

He’ll now get to enjoy his retirement, and the Bruins will simply be thankful that they got to enjoy one of the game’s most valuable players of the salary-cap era for the entirety of his nearly 1,300-game NHL career.