Bergeron heads to All-Star Game focused on present with Bruins

Sometimes Patrice Bergeron feels 36. In the morning, after back-to-back games. When the muscles ache a little extra and the stretching is a little harder and the kids are out of sorts and the body isn't quite as fluid as it once was.

Mostly, though, he feels good. Mostly, he can do all the things he's always done, enough to get him to the 2022 Honda NHL All-Star Game on Feb. 5, enough to captain a surging Boston Bruins team.
Sometimes, though? Sometimes he just feels 36.
"I was looking back and thinking when I was younger -- 22 or whatever -- back in my younger days in the League with the Bruins and playing with older players that were around that age, and thinking how old they were," the center said recently by phone. "I couldn't believe myself, I was like, oh my god, I'm playing with, like, Dads. They're old. And now here I am, right?"
He knows what happened to those players next, that in one year or two years or three years they were out of the NHL, off to next chapters, replaced on the roster by one of those kids he once was.
So, he knows what you're thinking. He's thinking it, too. Or, rather, he's trying his best not to think about it.
"My whole career I've always had the [contract] extensions and the long-term deals, so I felt like this time I was like, I just want to play this year and see how I feel, see where we're at, see a lot of things," Bergeron said. "There's a lot of questions that I've asked myself that need to be answered."
Bergeron is in the final season of an eight-year contract he signed July 12, 2013, what feels like a lifetime ago. Then, he was days away from turning 28, with no children and most of his NHL career ahead of him. Now, he's one of those dads, the oldest of his three kids is enduring the stops-and-starts of COVID-pandemic kindergarten, and he understands the end of his playing days is bearing down.
Because he didn't know what the future would hold, Bergeron said in September that he would not negotiate a new contract during the season. He would play out 2021-22 and then address any potential new deal. That continues to be his plan. But he doesn't want to think about it. Not now.
"As you get older and you realize that the window is getting shorter and shorter, then you start thinking those questions, thinking about those things, the future and whatnot," Bergeron said. "But to be honest, right now I'm really not.
"It's the first time in my career where I don't have an extension, so I can actually take the time to really answer all the questions that I have, whether it's personal, it's team, it's whatever that is. I think sometimes people just kind of overthink it. And right now I just don't have the answer. It doesn't mean anything. I don't think we should read too much into that. It's just that I don't know.
"I don't want to think about next year right now because I'm 36 and I feel like I can do that and I can just worry about the present and appreciate the time that I'm at the rink."
There is much to appreciate.
The Bruins (25-13-3) are playing well, 14-5-3 in their past 22 heading into a road game at the Dallas Stars on Sunday (7 p.m. ET; SN1, BSSW+, NESN, ESPN+, NHL LIVE). Bergeron, who will represent the Atlantic Division at the All-Star Game in Las Vegas, has scored 33 points (12 goals, 21 assists) in 40 games this season, the eighth-best points per game rate (.83) in his 18 NHL seasons.
Bergeron leads the NHL in face-off winning percentage, 63.2 percent on 938 total face-offs, most in the League. He also leads the NHL in shot attempts differential, 300, demonstrating just how good he and his line is at controlling the play.
His defense is as good as it has always been.
"He's continuing to do it because he's so smart," said Mark Recchi, the Hall of Fame forward who helped the Bruins win the Stanley Cup in 2011 with Bergeron and who is now an assistant with the New Jersey Devils. "He doesn't waste any energy. He knows how to play the game the right way. He's almost methodical in the way he plays the game, but there's a lot of determination in his game. It's just fun to watch every night."

Bergeron was selected by the Bruins with the No. 45 pick in the 2003 NHL Draft. He is third all-time in games played for the Bruins (1,183), behind Ray Bourque (1,518) and Johnny Bucyk (1,436). He is fifth in goals (387) and fourth in assists (563) and points (950). He has won the Selke Trophy voted as the best defensive forward in the NHL four times, tied with Bob Gainey for most all-time. He unforgettably played in Game 6 of the 2013 Stanley Cup Final with cracked ribs, torn cartilage and a punctured lung.
"I almost feel like I've seen it all, but then you remember how long he's been doing this and how dominant he still is," said Brad Marchand, the left wing who has been at Bergeron's side for the past decade. "And I guess when you look at it in that sense, it's even more impressive."
And even more irreplaceable.
"Will there be another Patrice Bergeron?" Recchi said. "Probably not. … He's a tremendous leader. He's a tremendous player. And the type of person he is, it's the whole package. Every team wishes they had a guy like that leading their franchise, I can tell you that."
For much of his career, Bergeron was buffeted by Zdeno Chara, who signed with the Bruins before the 2006-07 season, Bergeron's third season in the NHL. The defenseman, eight years Bergeron's senior, immediately was named captain of the Bruins, and helped lead them to that 2011 Stanley Cup and two more appearances in the Cup Final, a six-game loss to the Chicago Blackhawks in 2013 and a seven-game loss to the St. Louis Blues in 2019.
The two players forged a partnership, a leadership tandem that formed the identity of the franchise and molded its youth.
Chara signed with the Washington Capitals after the 2019-20 season and Bergeron became captain on Jan. 7, 2021. But even then, Bergeron was not technically the elder statesman of the Bruins. Backup goalie Jaroslav Halak had two months on Bergeron.
"I always teased him about the fact that he was the oldest, that he looked old and all that," Bergeron said. "But then, now, here I am, right? I'm the oldest. It's the first time now."
Most of the players on the 2011 team are gone now. Chara is with the New York Islanders. David Krejci left after last season to play in his native Czech Republic. Only Marchand, 33, and goalie Tuukka Rask, 34, remain with Bergeron. Rask sat out the first half of the season after having hip surgery in July and signed a one-year contract Jan. 11.
Like Bergeron, Rask's future is undetermined, and the two could be linked. It's something they've spoken about, what happens next.
"We're realistic that we're getting older and the window is closing, [whether] that's a year, two or three years, who knows?" Rask said. "But it's closing and we know that."
The question for Bergeron is how soon will that happen? How much longer can he stave off time? How much longer does he want to?
"I feel like right now I need to concentrate on the now," Bergeron said. "I'm at a point in my career where that's all that really matters. I shouldn't think about extensions or the future. I think it's about enjoying the moments.
"I know that there's a lot less time for me in this League. So, I'm pretty aware of that, that it's coming to an end at some point and I need to really enjoy that feeling and that moment."
With all of that said, enjoying moments and awareness of the ticking clock, does that mean retirement is really on the table?
"It's one of those questions," he said. "It's like the million dollar question, right? Is it one of the boxes that is there? Yeah. It's in one of those boxes that needs to be checked, if that's where I'm at or not.
"And that's why I don't have the answer right now. I'm feeling good, I'm happy with how our team is trending right now in the right direction. So, yeah, it's there. But it's not the only question. … It's definitely not the only reason that I'm not signing."
It's something that his teammates would prefer not to ponder, the end. They know that it will change, well, everything.
"You can't replace guys like that, what he brings to the table on and off the ice, his leadership values, the way he controls the room and the bench," Marchand continued. "He's the guy that we're not going to be able to replace when that time does come. But we're not thinking about that right now. That's hopefully a long time down the road. And, in the meantime, we've just got to cherish the time that we have him here and take advantage of that."
To, perhaps, win another Stanley Cup.
"It really is the motor of the whole thing," Bergeron said. "That's why we play the game. That's why we grew up wanting to be in this League, in this position, is to one day be able to win the Cup. And then once you taste it, you want more. It's almost like an addiction where you want to have that feeling again."
Reminded that Recchi won in his third season, again in his 17th, and then that final time with the Bruins in 2011, before retiring as a Cup winner, Bergeron laughs.
"Oh man," he said. "That'd be a nice way to go out."