Torey Krug bolts B’s for Blues

With a whole new financial landscape facing NHL general managers, the league’s annual free agent grab promised to proceed a tad more slowly than usual. That promise was kept.

But at about 8:20 p.m. on Friday, word filtered out that Torey Krug had become an ex-Bruin, moving to the heartland and the team that delivered his now former Black and Gold teammates and him a crushing defeat a little more than a year ago — the St. Louis Blues. Krug signed with the Blues for seven years at an average annual value of $6.5 million. Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman reported that the B’s final offer was six years at $6.6 million, but that was taken off the table as GM Don Sweeney presumably began to hunt a different big game. Sweeney’s press availability was postponed till Saturday afternoon. It appears the B’s could have made this deal from a financial standpoint but simply chose to go in a different direction. What direction remains to be seen.

Krug did not get into what the offer was from the B’s, but said he got it a year ago and at some point it was “pulled from him.” He said he was “not close” to signing a deal with the B’s and that communication had dried up.

Though he didn’t get to finish his career in Boston like he would have wanted, he looked back in fondness, even as he struggled to describe it.

“It’s very hard. To be honest, I don’t have all my thoughts and feelings ready to respond to a question like that,” said Krug, speaking to reporters from his home in Boston. “My initial response is I’m excited to join the Blues. It’s sad I have to leave a city that gave me an opportunity. When I came into the league, there were not many teams in the league that would have given a chance on a 5-foot-9 defenseman, a puck mover that was undrafted. It’s tough. I grew up here and grew up as a professional and my family’s grown here. It’s something that’s emotional to talk about it. We’ll see how I react in the coming days, but right now I’m just really excited. A great group of guys to move on from and a city like this, this locker room, I have life-long friends that I’m going to remain in contact with and be very close with. From that respect I’m just very thankful for my time in Boston and all the lessons I’ve learned over the years from that group of leaders, even the organization from top to bottom, I have nothing but great things (to say).”

Krug said he was given no choice but to move on.

“(The offer) was pulled from me. I didn’t have an offer. And when they offer me a year ago and then it’s gone, I don’t know what I’m expected to do. Just being blunt and being honest … . Most people don’t share that side of it, but it is what it is,” said Krug. “But I’m very thankful for the opportunity that they gave me and I’m very thankful for the opportunity that the Blues gave me. And I can’t wait to join this organization and compete for a championship year in and year out. The core here is great and I’m looking forward to it.”

Krug fell one game short of a Stanley Cup, to his new team two years ago in Game 7 at the Garden. But after arriving in Boston as an undersized, undrafted free agent, Krug left his mark on Boston and the B’s as a tremendous power-play quarterback and a battler despite his size.

Kevan Miller, who signed a one-year extension with the B’s, heard the news on his Zoom call with reporters.

“Did he really? Ahh, man,” said Miller, himself undrafted like Krug. “Obviously he’ll be missed from a player standpoint. From a personal standpoint I’ve been basically with the guy my entire career and his entire career. He’s a god friend and I wish him nothing but the best. And I’ll tell him to keep his head up when we play St. Louis. No, in all reality, it’s tough news for us, but I wish him the best and he’ll certainly be missed.”

Meanwhile, the Bruins were believed to be kicking the tires, at the very least, on one-time Hart Trophy winner Taylor Hall, who would add some punch the B’s left side. The B’s should have some stiff competition for Hall, but as of late Friday night there were still other options, including Tyler Toffli, Mike Hoffman and Evgeni Dadonov.

Captain Zdeno Chara, in a somewhat expected development, was taking his time in the process he hadn’t been a part of in 14 years. He’s expressed his desire to continue playing for the Bruins, but some time may have been required for the B’s to gain some cost certainty with any new acquisitions before they signed the captain. Chara, of course, is also free to look at his own options.

The only deal that the B’s made by publication time was with Miller, who is attempting to come back from multiple right knee injuries.

The 32-year-old Miller has had rotten luck the last couple of years, and that misfortune may have cost the B’s a Stanley Cup in 2019. Near the end of the regular season, Miller broke his knee cap when he crashed into the end boards at Xcel Energy Center in Minnesota.

In the process of working his way back in the lineup during the 2019 playoffs, the kneecap split again and he had to shut it down. His size and physicality would have come in handy when the ground-and-pound Blues outlasted the B’s in the seven-game Stanley Cup Finals.

As he tried to come back in 2019-20, he suffered numerous setbacks that eventually led to surgery and he never played a game in the season that was interrupted and then extended by the coronavirus.

But the B’s have always loved the California-born and University of Vermont-produced Miller’s work ethic, and they saw enough in the results of his relentless rehab efforts to extend the one-year deal with a cap hit of $1.25 million.

Miller has been skating two to three times a week and working out in Colorado. He said he wouldn’t be cleared to play at this moment, but “come puck drop, I have no doubt in my mind I’ll be 10 percent by then,” said Miller.

It’s been a tough road for Miller.

“I’d be totally lying to you if I didn’t say there were times I was staring myself in the mirror saying ‘I don’t know if this is going to work, if I’m ever going to make it back,” said Miller. “But through the support of my family and my friends, coaches and teammates, everybody that’s been behind me — special shout-out to the docs and trainers, they’ve really helped me through this. Its definitely been a test, but I think I’ve come out stronger from this, but I know my knee will be 100 percent and ready to go and won’t have one bit to worry about that. I’m super excited about that. I have some unfinished business to do. I remember watching up in the stands against St. Louis just knowing that I could help, and I still lose sleep over that. I’m excited to be back and chasing that again.”

The day began with a thud when Oliver Ekman-Larsson’s agent Kevin Epp announced that the Arizona Coyotes had run out of time to make a trade for the two-way defenseman and he was staying put in the desert. Ekman-Larsson has a full no movement clause but had agreed to waive it for only two teams, the Canucks and Bruins. Increasingly over the past week, the B’s looked less likely to make a deal, whether it be because of the ask on a return package or Ekman-Larsson’s mammoth contract that calls for him to be paid $8.25 million a year for the next seven years.

 

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/3jN5gos