While Thursday night wasn’t a win for the Boston Bruins, it still showed what feisty D-man Torey Krug is all about.
The puck-moving defenseman has averaged 13 goals per season in his first two NHL campaigns, and has consistently been a dangerous player from the point on the power play. But this season has been more than a little bit of a challenge for the hard-nosed, determined Krug, who will turn 25 years old next month at the tail end of his third full NHL season.
This season Krug has just three goals in 68 games, and has now gone 43 games and counting since last lighting the lamp in a road win in Vancouver back on Dec. 5. It’s a drought that Krug is well aware of, and is most definitely bothersome to him when the Bruins end up on the losing end of things. The goal-scoring slump made Krug’s actions all the more impressive against Carolina when he kick-started the PP unit’s zone entry by carrying the puck up the ice with speed, and then skated straight to the net after feeding Patrice Bergeron on the right wing.
Instead of trying to find a place to open up for a shot, Krug drew the Carolina PK unit’s attention to him, opened up the passing lane for Bergeron and earned the secondary assist when Bergeron fed Loui Eriksson for the power play goal. Krug’s net drive was an unheralded, but completely vital, part of the play ending in a goal for the Black and Gold. The actions were those of a selfless player doing what it takes to make something positive happen for his team rather than a player looking for an easy goal to end his personal scoring slump.
There’s never any time during an NHL season when it’s appropriate for players to worry about their own personal stats, but that goes doubly so when the offensive chances start to tighten up in the last few months.
“Goals are hard to come by right now and I think defensively every team pulls it together in the latter half of the season,” said Krug, who sees players much more willing and eager to step in front of his points at this point in the season than they might have been in October and November. “I think, you know, it’s just tough sometimes. Teams are trying to get points.”
What’s making all of this more interesting for Krug is his contract situation. The talented, young D-man signed a one year extension in the final weeks of last season, and essentially “bet on himself”, and the kind of season he would have this year. It’s no secret Krug, a restricted free agent with arbitration rights, is looking for a long term deal comparable with some of the other young D-men in the league that have posted numbers similar to him.
It’s also no Black and Gold state secret that he wants it to be in Boston as he continues to mature into an even more complete NHL defenseman.
“He’s always been good. I just find that guys like [Krug] that already have that [puck-moving] quality, they just get better with experience,” said Claude Julien. “He’ll be a lot calmer under certain situations than he was earlier in his career, and those guys grow from that experience. A good example is probably John-Michael Liles: a similar player, but he’s been in the league for so long that you can see he doesn’t panic in certain situations. Torey is becoming that kind of player as well.”
The contracts to Olli Maatta (six years, $24.5 million), Jared Spurgeon (four years, $20.75 million), David Savard (five years, $21.25 million) and John Klingberg (seven years, $29.75 million) should all be in the range of what’s coming for Krug. The new wrinkle for this season is an expanded role for the third year player. Krug has stepped up his game this season as a top-4 defenseman, is averaging a career-high 21:29 of ice time per game that’s almost two minutes more per game than last year and has consistently been Boston’s second-best defensemen behind Zdeno Chara all season.
So the long term should be coming for Krug, but he’s not letting it affect him as he’d become accustomed to going year-to-year in the past with his contract.
“[The contract] hasn’t been an issue at all, and I don’t foresee it being an issue. Hopefully this year it goes a little faster than in year’s past,” said a smiling Krug. “I want to be here. I want to be a part of this group. I think this core group of guys is a very special group, and they take a lot of pride in the Bruins. I do too. I want to be a part of this group for a long time.”
There haven’t been any contract discussions between Krug’s camp and the Bruins to this point in the season, according to a source with knowledge of the situation. But he certainly doesn’t want any negotiations to spill over into training camp as it did for him last season. One thing Krug definitely won’t be doing: changing his game down the stretch to force goals or points in order to puff up his stats for contract negotiations. Some players in a contract year might be feeling pressure with their goal totals way down, but Krug is showing his consistent, present leadership by worrying about the team first, and foremost.
“I have more assists this year, and I’m on pace to score as many points as I do every year. So I’m just trying to be a consistent player. From the outside looking in people might say that I’m having an off year, but you have to realize the steps I’m taking defensively along with the more minutes that I’m playing,” said Krug. “I’m still on pace for the amount of goals that I help the team score [every season], so for me it doesn’t really matter how they happen. The more games you win then everything else will take care of itself.”
Krug is actually on pace for a career-high 41 points, will top 20 minutes of ice time per game for the first time in his career, and has shown the Bruins that they’ll get a consistently good return when their long term investment does come in on him. So there’s probably good reason why the intrepid Krug isn’t worrying about tomorrow, while producing today for a Bruins hockey club that’s surprised a lot of people this season.