If you had guessed which Bruins player might drop the gloves during a preseason game in Philadelphia, veteran playmaking center David Krejci would have been very low on the prospective list. But it was the 31-year-old Krejci that dropped the gloves with Flyers rookie Nolan Patrick in Boston’s 5-1 loss at the Wells Fargo Center, and gave the No. 2 overall pick a “welcome to the NHL” moment of sorts in a one-sided exhibition game.
Both Krejci and Patrick got some decent licks in for a couple of skilled top-6 players that are paid to light the lamp rather than light each other up with punches. Krejci told reporters in Philly afterward that he was getting fed up with Patrick chirping a little too much on the ice, and perhaps it was also about the frustration level bubbling over just a little in an admittedly meaningless blowout loss.
“You gotta take the preseason games just like the regular season. That’s the best way to get ready. It just kind of happened. It’s a man’s sport. It is what it is,” said Krejci, who also scored Boston’s only goal in the preseason defeat. “I don’t want to speak for him, but I felt like he was little over the line [with his talking]. He was willing to go too. It wasn’t like I dropped and he was surprised.
“He was expecting that. So I kind of got to give him respect for that. [He’s in his] first year in the league so good for him. But at the same time, I thought he crossed the line a little bit. We fought and now it’s over with.”
The most important thing from a Bruins perspective is that Krejci came out of the incident unscathed and ready for Saturday night’s preseason finale in Chicago, followed by a healthy start to an important regular season for both the player and his hockey club.