After competing in the 2018 Winter Olympics, veteran forward Brian Gionta signed a one-year deal to close out the NHL regular season with the Boston Bruins. But after his short stint in Boston, the 39-year-old will have to find a new team if he wants to continue his NHL career.
On Thursday, Bruins GM Don Sweeney admitted that Gionta, Paul Postma and Kenny Agostino were not going to be offered contracts for next season.
This bit of news is hardly surprisingly. In Gionta’s case, he contributed two goals and five assists in 20 regular season games, which isn’t terrible considering he had been out of the league for most of the year.
In the playoffs, he served as a healthy scratch in all but one of Boston’s 12 games (he played in Game 4 of the second-round series against the Tampa Bay Lightning).
Could this be the end of the line for the 16-year veteran?
If it is, he’ll retire with 291 goals and 595 points in 1026 career games with New Jersey, Montreal, Buffalo and Boston. He also added 32 goals and 68 points in 113 postseason clashes. His best year came in 2005-06 when he was a member of the Devils. That year, he scored 48 goals and 89 points in 82 games.
He also won the Stanley Cup with the Devils in 2003.
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• NBC’s Stanley Cup Playoff Hub
• Stanley Cup Final Guide
Joey Alfieri is a writer for Pro Hockey Talk on NBC Sports. Drop him a line at phtblog@nbcsports.com or follow him on Twitter @joeyalfieri.