Seven games, no goals and three assists into the 2021-22 regular season campaign, his 18th with the Boston Bruins, the whispers and questions about whether Patrice Bergeron had finally hit the proverbial wall started.
Not so fast, the captain said.
Thursday night, Bergeron posted his second career four-goal game, tallying three power play strikes to tie a franchise record, and scoring on four of five shots to send the visiting Detroit Red Wings to a 5-1 defeat. Not content to simply dominate the scoring that night, Boston’s current active scoring leader with 379 goals and 925 points won 16 of 19 battles in the face-off circle.
As the famous Mark Twain quote in response to his published obituary goes, “the report of my death was an exaggeration.”
Bergeron is Boston hockey’s version of Tom Brady. Maybe not in terms of the league-wide domination of all statistical categories, or in the pure number of championships, mind you. But make no mistake- he has made a similar impact on the Bruins franchise that Brady did in all of his years with the New England Patriots. Bergeron has more in common with the GOAT- Brady- than those who would dismiss the comparison out of hand might think.
Here’s evidence to bolster the claim.
Why Bergeron is better in his 30s than 20s
Brady destroyed the accepted truth that once a professional athlete passes age 30, the clock is ticking and his/her best days are in the rearview mirror.
At age 44, he’s continuing to perform at the top of the NFL and establish new records in every major passing category in both the regular season and playoffs that aren’t likely to ever be broken by anyone in this world. He’s done it through a combination of a relentless personal drive for excellence, superior physical and dietary regimen, rules that have protected NFL quarterbacks from the kinds of hits that limited the shelf lives of greats from past generations, and some good old-fashioned luck, too.
Brady is one of a kind. But Bergeron isn’t far behind in terms of the way he’s wired, and while he may not possess Brady’s megastardom on the international stage, he’s much closer to No. 12 than any other athlete has been in Boston in the past two decades.
It starts with Bergeron’s personal discipline and conditioning. Even as a teenager, he was eating right, working out fanatically and ensuring he got proper rest.
In episode 7 of the New England Hockey Journal’s RinkWise podcast, Bergeron’s agent Kent Hughes told a story about his client as an 18-year-old rookie slept upwards of 13 hours per day. “The reason is that he needed to recharge, because it took that much out of him each day,” Hughes said during the podcast. Even at so young an age, Bergeron understood that he needed to maximize his rest and recovery cycle to overcome the “rookie wall” that hits so many younger players new to the NHL, many of whom are worn down by the 82-game regular season grind.
"I think Bergy's prepared himself his whole career, and he's been a good pro," Bruce Cassidy said before the team left for Toronto. "That's not something you can wake up at 35 and say, 'OK, I need to start conditioning myself better, eating better,' whatever the case, he's been looking after himself a long time.
"He's functioned well with his line mates learning to...I won't say 'adapt' because Bergy's Bergy no matter what. He understands how they play, where they need the puck and how he can get the puck from them as well, so there's chemistry there."
Bergeron has always understood that fueling the body the right way and making sure he is properly rested is every bit as important to the daily preparation process for practices and games as understanding the game plan or doing the actual work on the ice to improve in practice or win the two points in a contest is. It’s one of the main reasons he convinced then-head coach Mike Sullivan (Marshfield, Mass.) and his staff that he could not only play in the NHL at 18, but take on a regular role right away and then keep it, getting better as the season went on.
Cassidy doesn't have the personal connection to Brady to make direct comparisons to Bergeron, but did offer this bit of insight about how he sees similarities between the two:
"I do see high, high intelligence; (Brady's) another guy that seems to have been able to take care of himself so that when these years come, he's prepared for it," he said. "Guys who last a long time do have to be high IQ guys because everything slows down as you get older, that's just nature. That's how those guys can play longer than most, because they think the game well, understand it, play within themselves and don't try to be something they're not."
Even with a major concussion suffered early in the 2007-08 season that ultimately cost him the entire campaign, plus other ailments and injuries over the years, Bergeron endured. His outstanding conditioning, disciplined routines and ultimate intelligence and experience have added up to make him a more productive player after he turned 30 in July, 2015. Since then, he’s had four different 30-goal seasons for the Bruins. Aside from a down year of 21 markers in 79 games in 2016-17, Bergeron has had 30 or more in each of his other seasons, save for 2020-21’s COVID-shortened 54-game campaign, in which Bergeron scored 23, a 30-goal pace over 82 games.
What Bergeron is doing given his age and playing style as arguably the best two-way center of all time, is simply remarkable.
How Bergeron inspires his teammates to be at their best 24/7
Leadership takes many forms.
Bergeron’s style has always been to set the right example, doing it even at a young age with a seriousness and maturity that belied his youth. It is a big reason why he’s the youngest player in franchise history to score 30 goals in a single season, doing it before his 21st birthday and in just his second full year in the NHL, what should have been his third.
Over the years, as Bergeron gained experience and gradually became the most respected face of the Bruins organization (and we extend absolute respect and courtesy to Zdeno Chara in saying that), he naturally evolved into a more vocal and recognized leader on every squad. You don’t have to have Mark Messier’s simmering intensity as captain, or be an emotional, rah-rah leader to be effective, and Bergeron has written the book on doing things the right way.
"It's pretty remarkable knowing what he means to this organization and this city and the work he puts in every day," forward Curtis Lazar said of his captain. "His work ethic on and off the ice, in the gym, he takes care of his body with the way he eats. Everything he does is world class and it shows and directly translates to the results he gets on the ice. He does a great job of bringing us to battle each and every night.
"When he does speak, it's one of those moments when you stop what you're doing and listen to him. The words he has are very powerful, and for a guy like myself I can learn a lot from him each and every day."
To put it another way, if you’re in the same room day after day with No. 37 and watching the way he goes about doing things, how do you not take your own effort up several notches? How do you give anything less than your best knowing that Bergeron is the impossibly high bar of excellence you have to at least meet, let alone exceed?
https://twitter.com/NHLBruins/status/1456731799225200644?s=20
Whether scoring goals, setting them up, winning faceoffs or blocking shots, Bergeron is a winner. His four Selke Trophies as the league’s top defensive forwards, while being a finalist for the award an unprecedented ten (10!) times says all you need to know about the level of consistency he’s enjoyed. He might have just one Stanley Cup on his resume, but several Olympic gold medals, World Men’s and World Junior Championship golds as well, his champion’s portfolio brings him closer to Brady than simply pointing to the one NHL ring on his finger.
And of course, go back to the 2013 Stanley Cup final game 6, when Bergeron played through a separated shoulder, cracked rib, torn rib cartilage and punctured lung. Bergeron’s toughness is legendary, proving that you don’t have to post 400+ penalty minutes in a season to be a bad, bad man.
How Bergeron sustains his Hall of Fame career each year
The nature of professional sports as a results-oriented business and the “you’re only as good as your last shift” mentality so pervasive on social media, meant that Bergeron’s sluggish start with just three helpers in seven games was fodder for the doubts to start creeping in.
There’s no time for recriminations about who said what and when, because to do so grants the critics the attention they so cravenly desire. You can rest assured that Bergeron himself wasn’t listening to the radio, nor is he spending a lot of time keeping score about who is or isn’t in his corner. He knew that the numbers he put up were well off his usual standard of excellence, but didn’t let that change him or affect his mindset going into Thursday’s game against Detroit.
"I saw part of his interview last night (after the game) about his experience, knowing that he can't press, can't change things," Cassidy said of Bergeron's four-goal effort. "I'm sure if Brady has a game, and it doesn't go well, he doesn't decide to reinvent himself the next day. I think that's key for those veteran guys."
After Bergeron scored the fourth goal of the game off the rush (at regular strength, unable to establish a new team record with a 4th power play marker), the commuter rail ride from North Station to Lowell was spent thinking about what Bergeron means to the Bruins. For those of us who have been around him from the beginning, we know that at some point, he will no longer take the ice wearing the Spoked B, and that when he eventually walks away, he will do so having nothing left to prove.
In this regard, he’s not like Brady at all.
He’s not driven by a burning desire to prove the doubters wrong. Bergeron didn’t have to sit through hours of the NFL draft watching while so many other, inferior quarterbacks were chosen over him, waiting until the 199th overall selection. The Bruins captain was the 45th overall selection in 2003, and was pleasantly surprised to be chosen that early, for going into it, he had no real idea when he would be chosen.
“It was the first time I had to wait and it didn’t matter,” the shy 17-year-old a full month away from 18 at the time told media. It was his way of saying, “I could have been chosen last overall, and I’d be thrilled to be here in front of you all, wearing this Boston jersey.”
That kind of humility, respect and dedication to his craft and those around him are what has defined Bergeron throughout his NHL career.
He has a young family, and we have to remember- his career nearly ended at age 22, 14 years ago when he was run into the boards from behind by Philadelphia Flyers defenseman Randy Jones. It took him more than a year to return from that severe concussion, and it looked like he may never be the same player again. To look back and see all of the championships, trophies and big numbers he’s generated since that fateful game against the Flyers 10 games into Claude Julien’s first season behind the Boston bench is a remarkable blessing and turn of fortune for this franchise.
Jones is barely a footnote in the story. His final games in the NHL were the season after Bergeron raised the Cup over his head in Vancouver. He played his last professional game in the AHL in 2014. Only Bergeron can say how much that year of sitting in dark rooms and wondering if he would ever lace up a pair of skates to take NHL ice again, affected him. What we do know is that whatever the impact, he emerged from it all to become one of the game's greats.
What else does he really have to prove to anyone in the sport? At this point, he’s playing for himself, his family, his teammates, the city of Boston and the game of hockey. At some point, only a couple of those things will truly matter to him, and when that day finally comes, we won’t see another quite like No. 37 around here again.
Until then, Bergeron is the Bruins franchise. So, enjoy every moment he spends in the Black and Gold. All good things come to an end, but his legacy will endure alongside the very greats who enthralled generations of Boston fans, from Shore to Schmidt to Orr and Bourque.
When his No. 37 banner goes into the rafters one day, and when he’s enshrined on the first ballot into the Hockey Hall of Fame, Patrice Bergeron’s firm place on the Mount Rushmore of Bruins greats will be a mere formality.
He’s been there a long, long time.
