Hey, remember...Petr Tenkrat?

“Hey, remember...?” is a lighthearted look back at some of the lesser-known former Bruins we’ve seen pass through these parts in recent years. They might not have been stars and might not be the first guys you’d think of as “former Bruins,” but they’ve all got unique stories.

Hey, remember...?

Who? Petr Tenkrat

When did he play here? 2006-2007

What were his stats? 64 GP, 9G, 5A, 14PTS

What happened after the Bruins? He bounced around the Swedish, Finnish and Czech leagues, where he still played as recently as a couple of years ago.

Alright, alright: I promise this entire series won’t be players from the 2006-2007 Bruins.

But come on...that team was filled such a random assortment of characters! I could fill an entire summer with those names: Brandon Bochenski. Shean Donovan. Milan Jurcina. Hannu Toivonen. Hannu!

Anyways, back to the player at hand: Petr Tenkrat.

Tenkrat was a middle-of-the-lineup guy for Dave Lewis’ Bruins. He sometimes played on the second line, sometimes on the third. A quick Google search shows one night he played on a Tenrakt-Phil Kessel-Bochenski line; another night, it was Stan the Man Chistov-Mark Mowers-Tenrakt.

VERSATILITY!!!!!

The Bruins acquired Tenkrat in a trade with the Toronto Maple Leafs, trading a 7th-round pick. The Leafs eventually flipped the pick as well, and the player selected never made it to the NHL.

Back to Tenkrat: he was originally drafted by Anaheim as a 22-year-old winger back in the 8th round of the 1999 draft. He made his NHL debut a year later, then bounced around between the NHL and AHL, eventually ending up with the Nashville Predators.

It was with Nashville that Tenkrat had his most productive NHL season, recording 24 points in 58 games.

The Bruins acquired him as a mid-level guy, hoping he would fill a wing and chip in with some offense.

As you can tell by his stat line at the beginning of this post, he wasn’t exactly an offensive dynamo. However, he played with a little bit of an edge, which obviously endeared him to Bruins fans.

In fact, there was a pretty decent stretch of time where Tenkrat became a cult hero over on HFBoards. If you’ve never heard of HFBoards, think Twitter, but much more clique-y and less open to outside opinions. (However, The Lounge on HFBoards was hilarious...it was like “Weird Twitter” before Weird Twitter existed.)

HF threads would be filled with all caps TENKRAT appreciation posts. It was a glorious time. All hail Tenkrat.

TO THE HIGHLIGHTS!

Uhhh...that’s all I could find.

Anyways, after the glorious 06-07 season came to an end, Tenkrat’s NHL career met a similar fate. He skipped across the pond after the season to play for HC Kladno (JAGR!!!!!) in the Czech Republic, and was never seen in the NHL again.

He would go on to have a pretty solid European career; in fact, he was nearly a point-per-game guy in 2011-2012, recording 48 points in 52 games for Sparta Praha in the Czech league.

A fun fact about Tenkrat, per Wikipedia: He played for the Czech team at the 2008 Inline World Championships, where the Czechs lost in the quarterfinals. Like I said, VERSATILITY!

One more thing about Tenkrat that you could file under “fun facts,” I guess: Tenkrat wore #17 with the Bruins. When he wasn’t re-signed after the 06-07 season ended, the number was left vacant.

A few months later, it would be claimed, after a whirlwind training camp, by a rookie upstart named...Milan Lucic.

He’d become a cult hero and effective power forward before being shipped out of town a few years ago. The number remained unclaimed again, until another upstart rookie named Ryan Donato grabbed it this spring.

Let’s hope his career in black and gold is similarly exciting.

Got a player you’d like to see profiled in this series? Let us know in the comments!