Pastrnak Is Trying To Recruit Krejci Back For Bruins

After spending the last two weeks playing with his former Boston Bruins teammate and helping Team Czechia win Bronze at the World Championships, Bruins winger David Pastrnak is trying to recruit center David Krejci back to Boston and the NHL.

In an Instagram post Tuesday, Pastrnak posted a video of him and Krejci walking around the streets of Prague and flat out asked his buddy and longtime teammate with the Boston Bruins if he will come back to Boston with him next season?

“What’s up ‘Krech’? Are you coming back to Boston next year?” Pastrnak asked with a smile.

Krejci simply stared into the camera and smiled.

David Pastrnak asks David Krejci if he’s coming back to Boston next season… pic.twitter.com/FGhy6qwcHV

— Erin Walsh (@ewalsh90) May 31, 2022

After 962 games, 215 goals and 515 assists in the National Hockey League, David Krejci decided to leave the Boston Bruins and the NHL and head home to his native Czechia with his family last offseason. Citing a desire to be closer to his family and raise his kids in the Czech culture he grew up in, Krejci left at the end of his contract and signed with his native city’s Czech League squad Olomouc HC. In 51 regular season games Krejci scored 20 goals and 26 assists, and then added two goals and three assists in five playoff games. He then had three goals and nine assists in ten games for Team Czechia at the World Championships.

In his end of the season press conference two weeks ago, Boston Bruins general manager Don Sweeney was asked if he had had any talks with Krejci about a potential return.

“Not recently,” said Sweeney when asked this week if he’d had any conversations with Krejci recently. “David Pastrnak, along with Jeremy Swayman and Linus Ullmark have all traveled over to the World Championships and will play. Knowing how close they are, I’m sure there will be a conversation that maybe filters back to me. I certainly kept in touch with David and his camp throughout the year. He had hard decisions to make in terms of the promise he had made to his family overall. Just ultimately decided to stay and see it through. I’m sure at some point in time if he decides he wants to return, then hopefully I get a call and we can have a conversation. But I have not gone down that path for several months.

“It has to line up for a number of reasons. Still, it looks like [Krejci] values playing the game and being highly competitive and was highly productive. Seamlessly would probably fall back into knowing what our team is like and what we’re trying to accomplish, but again, it’s a hypothetical for me at this point in time. I’ll cross that bridge when it’s presented.”