Blues GM provides disheartening update on Torey Krug

The Blues may have to get used to life without Torey Krug.

Sidelined for the entire 2024-25 season due to a highly-invasive ankle surgery, Krug's injury is one that may very well end his playing career, Blues general manager Doug Armstrong revealed this week.

“I don’t think there’s much uncertainty with Torey," Armstrong said when asked for an update on Krug. "I talked to him, he was at the rink the other day, he’s just almost getting [back] to normal day-to-day living with his leg [and] ankle, so I’m not expecting him to play again.

"I’m hoping and he’s hoping I’m wrong, and he’s pushing, but the surgery that he had, it was very, very invasive."

Krug's decision to go under the knife was made after he noticed that his left ankle was getting 'worse and worse' six years after suffering a fracture during the 2018 Stanley Cup Playoffs with Boston.

“When it got to the point of being on the ice was starting to hurt it a lot, that’s when red flags went up that it might be something I needed to take care of,” Krug said last September. “I don’t know what a healthy ankle feels like as far as pain level. It’s always there.”

Krug, who spent the first 523 games of his career with the Bruins, acknowledged the uncertainty of successfully rebounding from this injury when he held his availability announcing the surgery last fall.

"Getting it taken care of as a 33-year-old professional athlete is a little bit different," a teary-eyed Krug acknowledged back then. "I thought I would have to do it when I was 50 down the road and retired. I always knew it was one of those things that would have to be done. It's just disappointing and sad that it has to be now."

Signed to a seven-year, $45.5 million deal in 2020, Krug has another two years at $6.5 million per season remaining on his deal, which will be spent on long-term injured reserve assuming Armstrong is correct in his belief that Krug's NHL career is indeed over.

A Bruin for nine seasons, the 5-foot-9 Krug posted 67 goals and 337 points in 523 games with Boston, and posted a career-high 14 goals and 59 points in 76 games during the 2017-18 season. Overall, Krug's 337 points are the fifth-most by any Bruins defenseman in the century-long history of the club, trailing only Brad Park, Zdeno Chara, Bobby Orr, and Ray Bourque. His 337 points are also the most by any American-born player in the history of the Black and Gold.

Krug also went to two Cup Finals with the Bruins (2013 and 2019), and his 52 career playoff points in 75 career playoff games as a Bruin are tied with Barry Pederson for the 23rd-most in franchise history.