Morning Skate: Waiving goodbye

Happy Monday, folks. Hopefully you had yourselves a nice weekend — in the Boston area, it was a summer weekend without one day that was a complete washout, which has been rare this year.

Drink it in.

Development Camp wrapped up on Friday, with the youths heading back home.

Based on reporting from camp, it seems like Mason Lohrei and Brady Lyle were your standouts, with a number of people noting that Lohrei impressed beyond expectations.

Now...we wait.

Don Sweeney had a media availability on Friday, and two things stuck out to me:

1. Development Camp invitees (i.e. not Bruins picks) have to pay their own way (flights, accommodations, etc). I’m sure this is common practice in the league, but man...that’s a tough spot to put a kid in.
2. Sweeney, predictably, left the door open for a David Krejci return in the future.

In Sweeney’s defense, he wasn’t so much stirring the pot as just saying “hey, it could happen.”

One wrinkle: if Krejci plays in the Czech league after the NHL season begins, he’d have to clear waivers to return this season.

From the collective bargaining agreement:

In the event a professional or former professional Player plays in a league outside North America after the start of the NHL Regular Season, other than on Loan from his Club, he may thereafter play in the NHL during that Playing Season (including Playoffs) only if he has first either cleared or been obtained via Waivers.

(Thanks to Pirahnabros, among others, for the CBA article.)

It’s fair to say that when Sweeney left the door ajar, he didn’t say “this season,” so...yeah.

If the Bruins were to re-sign Krejci and try to bring him back in March, he could tell the rest of the NHL “if you claim me, I won’t play for you, so don’t bother.”

However, if you’re a team fighting with the Bruins for a playoff spot (or if the Bruins are looking like a legit Cup contender and so are you), why not claim him anyways to prevent the B’s from getting better?

Of course, it’s the NHL, and the Old Boys Club general managers likely wouldn’t want to risk offending a colleague (hence why we never see offer sheets), but it’d be a shrewd move.

In any case, it’s likely a moot point: Krejci wanted to go play at home, so if he were to return, my guess would be it’d be after playing a full season in Czechia and having some time to assess his NHL future.

Until then, we’ll speculate.

Today’s discussion topic

One other note from Friday’s Sweeney call: he mentioned that he’s been in contact with Patrice Bergeron and his agent over a contract extension, but he’d keep those talks private.

I’m not mentally prepared for the day Bergeron is no longer a Bruin. Discuss.