P.J. Axelsson seems to have played his final game in the Bruins’ black and gold.
According to a report on Boston.com, barring an 11th-hour change, Axelsson will sign a multiyear deal with another NHL team. The 34-year-old winger is the B’s longest-tenured player, having spent 11 seasons in Boston.
The Bruins didn’t have a ton of interest in bringing back the Swede, who won an Olympic gold medal in 2006, especially in the wake of luring ex-Hab Steve Begin to town as an unrestricted free agent. Boston could likely have offered Axelsson a deal similar to Begin’s, but, as Kevin Paul Dupont says, “at the moment it looks as if [Axelsson] has something much better.”
The 2009 season saw Axelsson net six goals to go with a career-high 24 assists. The Bruins’ seventh-round choice in the 1995 draft, he has 103 goals and 184 assists in 797 regular season games.
