The Boston Bruins will get underway in the Stanley Cup Playoffs this week with unrestricted free agent Torey Krug still fulfilling a key role in the line-up.
You have to imagine that if the Boston Bruins show as little heart as they just did in the round-robin tournament, Torey Krug might consider looking for greener pastures, even for a payday that might not be as rich as previously thought.
If the Boston Bruins go out with a whimper, maybe Torey Krug takes a good look at the players around him and realizes that the veteran core is starting to show it’s age and last year was our last real chance at glory, for now.
Given Torey himself isn’t getting any younger and having faced the heartache of two lost Stanley Cup Finals, he could reach out to teams built a little younger to see what they can offer.
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In fact, maybe there’s the perfect fit in Colorado with the Avalanche having dealt their power-play quarterback Tyson Barrie last summer and having plenty of cap space, even with a cap that won’t move. There’s likely other teams that’d jump at the chance to sign Krug too, cap space or otherwise!
As much as Krug has routinely professed how much he enjoys being in Boston and playing for the Bruins, every NHL player is surely trying to win the Stanley Cup and not just enjoying the grind of an 82-game regular-season schedule with no real rewards at the end of that.
The big challenge if he sticks with Boston and secures a deal with term is that guys like Brad Marchand, Patrice Bergeron, David Krejci and Zdeno Chara, even Tuukka Rask can possibly be included; they’re all reaching the age you’d expect decline to set in.
Those five guys make up a pretty large part of the team’s success in recent years and while Dan Vladar or Jeremy Swayman may well be the goalie of the future, we don’t see them taking over immediately.
Neither do we see Jack Studnicka, Trent Frederic or at a stretch John Beecher, being ready for top-six center duties yet.
If indeed the Boston Bruins can’t put up a fight this summer, Torey Krug might make the decision we don’t want him to make.
It really is all on the Bruins roster to make this decision easy for Torey Krug – a Stanley Cup ring and four or five more years would be ideal!