One of the most distinguished careers in Boston Bruins’ history has come to an end.
After 20 seasons in pro hockey, Patrice Bergeron announced his retirement on Tuesday, a day after his 38th birthday. Bergeron shared the news through the team on social media.
“For the last 20 years I have been able to live my dream every day. I have had the honor of playing in front of the best fans in the world wearing the Bruins uniform and representing my country at the highest levels of international play,” he said in a statement, which he signed Patrice Bergeron-Cleary. “I have given the game everything that I have physically and emotionally, and the game has given me back more than I could have ever imagined.
“It is with a full heart and a lot of gratitude that today I am announcing my retirement as a professional hockey player.”
During what was most likely a Hall of Fame career, Bergeron became the gold standard for two-way excellence, receiving 11 nominations for the Selke Award, given to the league’s top defensive forward. He has won it a record six times. He played 1,294 career games with 427 goals and 1,040 points, reaching the 1,000-point plateau in his final season.
Bergeron had contemplated retirement last summer but, with the return of fellow veteran David Krejci, the B’s captain decided to come back for what would be one more run at a second Stanley Cup. While there was some doubt as to whether the team would even make the playoffs, the B’s put together the best regular season in the NHL’s history, posting a record-setting 65 wins.
But in a cruel twist of fate, the B’s tried a different approach to ramping up for the playoffs and played all their regulars in their final two regular season games. In the final game of the season in his home province of Quebec, Bergeron suffered a herniated disc in his back. He missed the first four games of the first round series against the Florida Panthers and, when he returned, he could not regain the form that had made him the league’s best two-way forward for the better part of two decades. The B’s lost a late lead in Game 7, then coughed up the game-winner in OT and all the regular season success was rendered meaningless.
It was a career that deserved a better ending.
Bergeron came to Boston as a shy, quiet teenager from L’Ancienne Lorette just outside Quebec City and he ended his career as the consummate pro who grew into a leadership role that would fit him like a glove.
Drafted with the 45th overall pick in the stacked 2003 draft, Bergeron went straight from his Acadie-Bathurst junior team to the B’s opening night roster as an 18-year-old rookie, starting his career as a right wing. He had a solid rookie season (16-23-39 totals) and would never give management any cause to send him to the minors, but he did learn to appreciate his professional station at an early age when he played the entire 2004-05 season in Providence when the entire NHL season was lost to a labor dispute.
The next year, his career took a sharp turn when No. 1 centerman Joe Thornton was dealt to the San Jose Sharks and Bergeron assumed the role, notching his first of six 30-goal seasons in his career.
Just as his career was ready to take off, it was put in jeopardy on a frightening hit from behind by the Flyers’ Randy Jones on Oct. 27, 2007. He broke his nose and suffered debilitating effects from a concussion that would keep him sidelined the rest of the season and greatly hamper his play the following season when he had just 8-31-39 totals in 64 games (he also suffered a second concussion on an open-ice hit from future teammate Dennis Seidenberg).
But as he slowly rebuilt his game, Bergeron honed in on the details of the game that would make him the top defensive forward of his generation. He would really find his stride in the middle of the Stanley Cup season of 2010-11 when he was paired with winger Brad Marchand, a partnership that would last for over a decade and feature several right wings, including Mark Recchi, Tyler Seguin, Reilly Smith and David Pastrnak, the last of which helped to create one of the most explosive lines in the NHL while it was together.
On June 15, 2011, Bergeron enjoyed his brightest moment when, after he scored two goals in a 4-0 victory in Game 7 in Vancouver, the B’s broke a 39-year Cup drought.
The following season, he won the first of his Selkes.
But it was in a painful defeat that Bergeron’s legend grew even more. In the B’s second trip to the Finals in three years in 2013. After the B’s loss to the Chicago Blackhawks in Game 6 at the Garden, Bergeron would spend the next three nights at Mass. General Hospital, where he was diagnosed with a list of injuries that could have been the result of a car wreck – broken rib, torn rib cartilage, a punctured lung and a separated shoulder.
While the B’s fortunes waned for a few years – they missed the playoffs in 2015 and 2016 – Bergeron’s game remained steady, reliable and excellent. In 2018-19, he enjoyed his most productive offensive season, posting 32-47-79 totals in a year the B’s made a surprise run to the Cup finals that ended in a devastating Game 7 loss to the St. Louis Blues on Garden ice.
Since then, Bergeron’s solid play has in part kept the B’s competitive. After Zdeno Chara’s departure prior to the 2020-21 season, he was named captain of the B’s. He did not have to win over the room. Several years prior to that, the leadership situation morphed into a sort of co-captain arrangement with Chara and Bergeron.
Despite his retirement, Bergeron’s game barely had dropped off, as evidenced by his sixth Selke win in June
Bergeron may not have been able to go out like Recchi, with the Stanley Cup over his head. But he was able to leave with his estimable game intact.
“As I step away today, I have no regrets,” said Bergeron. “I have only gratitude that I lived my dream, and excitement for what is next for my family and I. I left everything out there and I’m humbled and honored it was representing this incredible city and for the Boston Bruins fans.”