Boston Bruin re-sign Patrice Bergeron to one-year, $2.5 million contract

The Boston Bruins have re-signed center and captain Patrice Bergeron to a one-year contract with a $2.5 million cap hit. The contract also has an additional $2.5 million in performance bonuses, although the requirements to hit those aren’t official at this time.

Bergeron was an unrestricted free agent after finishing up an eight-year contract with a $6.785 cap hit. While Bergeron was technically a free agent, there was no doubt that he would return to the Bruins, it was more of a question of if he was retiring or not. There were rumours at the end of June that Bergeron was re-signing with the Bruins, but there was no word on the details of the contract until now.

While Bergeron is coming off a career year in 2021-22, it wasn’t in the offensive department. He was still really good there too, with 25 goals, 40 assists, and 65 points in 73 games last season, which is a great season, especially at 37 years old. But, it was the defensive side of his game where he had a career year, capturing his fifth career Selke trophy in the process.

It’s crazy to think that Bergeron can be even better defensively than he’s already been in his career, but he not only had a career year in 2021-22, he had a defensive season that we’ve never seen from anyone before. Bergeron finished the season with a 66.23% shot attempt share and a 69.4% expected goal share at even strength, both of which were not only the best in 2021-22, they are the best totals from any season since those stats started to be tracked in 2007-08, and both by at least 1% too.

With this deal, the Bruins find themselves with just over $2 million in cap space. They still have one restricted free agent to deal with in Pavel Zacha, who has an arbitration hearing scheduled for August 11.