Boston, MA – This should help ease Patrice Bergeron's pain a little bit this summer.
The banged-up Bruins forward has signed an eight-year contract extension that will keep him with Boston through the 2021-22 season. The salary is worth an annual cap figure of $6.5 million.
"Really happy to be a Bruin, hopefully for life," said Bergeron at a Friday news conference. "I will hopefully retire a Bruin. That's the goal, that's what I want."
Bergeron played the last few games of the Stanley Cup Finals against Chicago with a myriad of injuries, including a fractured rib, torn rib cartilage, a punctured lung and separated right shoulder.
The 27-year-old Quebec native, already under contract through the 2013-14 season, has played his entire career with Boston. He has 153 goals and 280 assists for 433 points in 579 regular-season games, and notched 10 goals with 22 assists for 32 points in 42 games during the lockout-shortened 2013 campaign.
Bergeron helped the Bruins to the Stanley Cup title in the spring of 2011, scoring 20 points in 23 playoff games. He scored nine goals and added six assists in 22 games this postseason, which ended with a six-game loss to the Blackhawks in the Cup Finals.
A top-notch faceoff man, Bergeron has won 60.3 percent of his draws over the last two seasons and has a plus-60 rating, which ranks first overall in the NHL during that span. He won the Selke Trophy as the league's best defensive forward for the 2011-12 season and was a finalist again this year.
The Bruins selected Bergeron with the 45th overall pick of the 2003 NHL Entry Draft and he earned a spot on the team a few months later as an 18-year-old.
It's the second big deal for a key Bruin this week, as goaltender Tuukka Rask agreed to an eight-year, $56 million contract on Wednesday.
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