It has been a great NHL career for Torey Krug. The defenseman from Royal Oak, Michigan, has been a staple in the National Hockey League for over a decade. 

Before he was manning the blue line for St Louis Blues, and the Boston Bruins before that, Krug played for his home state Michigan State Spartans. During his time in East Lansing from 2009-2012, Krug was able to register 83 points and was a captain for the Spartans for two seasons as well.

Despite a 53-48-14 record during his time skating at Munn Ice Arena, he did help the Spartans get to the NCAA Tournament in 2012. During that 2011-12 season, Krug showed that he was one of the best blue-liners in College Hockey. He was named an All-American and finished as a Hobey Baker Award Finalist.

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That led him to sign a pro contract with the Boston Bruins following that breakout junior season with Michigan State.

He quickly became one of the best young defensemen the NHL had to offer. He was named to the 2014 All-Rookie First Team, as he helped the Bruins finish as the top team in the NHL, as they won the Presidents’ Trophy in his rookie season.

From there, Krug continued to be part of some very successful Bruins teams. His success on the defensive end of the ice helped the Bruins reach the Stanley Cup Finals in 2019, only to lose to the Blues. Despite the loss, Krug became the first player in Bruins history to record four points in a Stanley Cup Finals game.

Following that season, Krug made the jump to the defending Champion Blues. Signing a huge seven-year contract.

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Despite the major contract, the last several years have proved to be very rough for Krug. The once elite defender has dealt with a lot of injuries over the last couple of seasons.

The most recent injury was his ankle, and it kept him off the ice for the whole 2024-25 season. And now, according to St Louis Blues General Manager Doug Armstrong, he could be done at the NHL level.

” I don’t think there’s much uncertainty with Torey,” Armstrong said via the Boston Globe. ” 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 was very, very invasive.”

It’s always tough to see an injury end a career, especially when a player still has a lot to offer. Krug has given his life and body to being at his best. The 34-year-old meant so much to both organizations he played for.

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So if it is indeed the end of the line for Krug, it has been a good run. He is the Bruins’ all-time leading scorer among American skaters, which isn’t a bad mark to have for an Original Six organization.

Krug likely finishes with a mark of 778 career games over 13 seasons, tallying 89 goals, 394 assists, and 483 points. Best of luck to Krug; he was special, especially after joining the NHL as an undrafted player.

Related: Team USA Adds Spartan Star to the 2025 Men’s Hockey Tournament Roster

Kings winger Kevin Fiala’s season hasn’t come to an end just yet.  After originally being unable to play at the Worlds due to some travel issues, the Swiss Ice Hockey Federation announced that Fiala will indeed be able to join the squad, filling their final spot.  The 28-year-old was the tournament MVP last year, notching seven goals and six assists in just eight games.  This season, Fiala had a career-high 35 goals in 81 games for Los Angeles while recording seven points in six games in their first-round exit at the hands of Edmonton.

Elsewhere around the hockey world:

• Predators prospect Viktor Norringer has decided where he’ll play college hockey as he announced on his Instagram page that he has made a verbal commitment to Boston University. The 18-year-old was a fourth-round pick last year, going 127th overall.  Norringer had a dominant showing in Frolunda’s junior system this season, tallying 24 goals and 33 assists in just 39 games.  It’s expected that Norringer will debut at BU in 2026-27 so for next season, he could remain at home or look to play in the USHL.
• Two of Dallas’ top prospects have seen their seasons extended. Per the AHL’s transactions log, defenseman Tristan Bertucci and forward Emil Hemming have been assigned to AHL Texas.  Bertucci was a second-round pick in 2023, going 63rd overall, and spent the season with OHL Barrie, notching 37 points in 52 regular season games while adding 18 more in 16 playoff contests.  Hemming, meanwhile, was a first-round pick (29th overall) by the Stars last June.  The 18-year-old had 48 points in 60 games with Barrie during the regular season but also improved his output in the playoffs, collecting 15 more points in those 16 playoff outings.
• Still with the Stars’ farm team, they’ve added some goalie depth for their playoff run. Per an announcement from Ohio State (Twitter link), Texas has signed Logan Terness to an ATO agreement.  The 22-year-old split his college career between UConn and Ohio State and saved his best performance for last, putting up a 2.46 GAA and a .917 SV% in 25 outings this season.  Terness will use this stint to try to earn himself a pro deal for 2025-26.

President Donald Trump is putting together a commission to look at name, image and likeness in NCAA football and other sports. Also known as NIL, this policy allows college athletes to make money while in school. Former Alabama football coach Nick Saban is confirmed to be on this commission, per U.S. Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL), and reported by On3.

“Nick Saban is gonna be involved. I think the NIL is in dire need of restructuring,” Tuberville said in an interview on CNN and reported by On3.

Critics of NIL say the policy has become a pay-for-play system, where schools with the most money simply buy players. Critics also say NIL disproportionately hurts smaller schools. These are some of the reasons why Trump is getting the federal government involved.

“He’s got a commission that he’s putting together. I’ve recommended some people to go on it, of course. I’ve been working on it for four years,” Tuberville added.

Saban is rumored to be the point person of this commission, put together by President Trump. The U.S. Congress has also debated NIL and proposed legislation to offer guard rails on the policy, but no law has been passed.

The NCAA is looking at reshaping NIL for football and other sports

A legacy of hope and laughter for Gaudreau brothers as family, friends and hockey community grieve

DAN GELSTON
AP Sports Writer

Published: May 12, 2025

WESTVILLE, N.J. (AP) — The family called him John. It wasn’t until John Gaudreau played for Boston College that he picked up the “Johnny Hockey” nickname that followed him through 11 seasons in the NHL.
His mother, Jane, gleefully recalled the “Johnny Hockey” T-shirts and sing-song chants BC fans bestowed on their beloved wizard on the ice. At home in New Jersey, younger brother Matthew, who also played hockey for Boston College, and sisters Kristen and Katie couldn’t help but tease their brother with the nickname as his popularity and All-Star career grew through stops in Calgary and Columbus.
Take one night during the NHL Awards in Las Vegas, just one family story out of thousands of favorites, when Gaudreau tried to keep a low public profile on a family outing. Katie wasn’t having it out on the Strip, shouting for all to hear, “Johnny! Johnny Hockey!”
“I can see John’s face getting redder and redder and redder,” Jane Gaudreau said with a laugh. “You walk down the street and no one knows who you are until Katie started making this whole big thing.”
Everything was fine for the family when they gathered last August for Katie’s wedding. John and Matt were the groomsmen and Kristen the maid of honor. What happened next, the typhoon of shock and grief that rippled from New Jersey through the heart of the hockey community, has been well-documented over the last eight months.
The night before the wedding, John, 31, and Matt, 29, died after they were hit by a suspected drunken driver while riding bicycles in the Delaware River country south of Philadelphia, leaving a family forever shattered, with not enough time to ever fully pick up all the pieces.
They try.
From births to hockey tributes, through Instagram pages dotted with photos from the family scrapbook and a new foundation, to a playground fundraising effort at the family’s beloved school, the Gaudreaus have pushed through dark days when even getting out of bed seemed impossible. They pull through, pull together, just as they did as a family of six in South Jersey, and try to focus on a simple mantra: Live their lives to the fullest in honor of Matt and John.
There is more hardship ahead and dark days are going to come and go. The driver charged with killing the brothers, a man prosecutors described as having a history of alleged road rage and aggressive driving, still faces trial.
But as Jane Gaudreau details her dream of a new, adaptive playground for the special education students at the school where she works, it’s the good times that stir the most memories. The stories lift the spirits of Jane, husband Guy and countless friends and teammates who went through their first hockey season in decades without two men who gave so much to their growing families and to the game.
“It’s great to keep their memories alive,” said their sister, Kristen Venello, who rocks her Blue Jackets hoodie as a speech assistant at Archbishop Damiano School. “It is sad. But you think about all the good things they did and that’s all you can think about. And how much they can help us still.”
The project
Archbishop Damiano School was founded in 1968 for children with Down syndrome and now provides services for 125 students with special needs from ages 3 to 21. Jane Gaudreau’s brother attended the school and their mother worked there for 44 years. Jane was hired in 1984 and is still a finance associate there. Kristen, the oldest daughter, has taught at the school for almost two decades. Katie used to assist with the kids when she could and the two Gaudreau boys volunteered at the school when they weren’t playing hockey.
In death, they can perhaps leave a permanent legacy at Damiano outside family and hockey.
Kelsie Snow lost her husband, Chris, a former assistant general manager with the Calgary Flames, in 2023 to Lou Gehrig’s disease. She called Jane with a suggestion on how to navigate life through perpetual grief: Keep busy. Find a project. Jane and Guy embraced the idea and searched for the right one, until they realized the answer was right there at Archbishop Damiano.
The Gaudreaus and the staff at Archbishop Damiano threw themselves into fundraising for a modern playground that allows for everything from basic wheelchair accessibility to ramps and transfer platforms for the students. The Gaudreau Family 5K set for May 31 is expected to bring needed cash to the initiative launched by principal Michele McCloskey in 2020.
“I know the boys would be proud of us,” Jane said. “Both boys loved children, that’s why we thought the playground would be perfect.”
The Gaudreaus have another, more enduring project ahead of them as doting grandparents. Both widows have given birth since their husbands died. Meredith, who revealed during her tearful eulogy for John in August that she was pregnant, gave birth in April to the couple’s third child, Carter Michael Gaudreau. Madeline delivered her and Matty’s first baby, Tripp Matthew Gaudreau, in December.
Jane laughs when she describes how much the new additions resemble their fathers. Tripp has light hair like his dad; Carter looks like big sister Noa, and they both look like John.
“My husband keeps saying this,” Jane said, “‘I think God sent us John and Matty back.”
The road ahead
Guy and Jane, married 42 years, almost never go out to dinner, overwhelmed by feelings of guilt over enjoying themselves, and those emotions also run deep with Katie. She told her mom, yes, she wanted to marry her fiancé, Devin Joyce, but wasn’t sure a big wedding was the way to go. Jane said she simply told her there was no wrong decision, but to let the rage and sadness settle and take as much time as necessary make a decision.
The couple eventually rescheduled their wedding for July 11. Katie wrote on her Instagram post, “I guess this year has taught me to celebrate our love everyday, every minute.”
“You know the boys, they’ll be there with us that day,” Jane said. “They would want you to have fun.”
Jane added with resolve, “This guy already took two of the most important things away from us. Don’t let him take away your wedding.”
A legacy of laughter
The 5K has filled its allotment of 1,000 runners for race day at a New Jersey park but anyone can contribute from home as a virtual participant. More than 700 people have already signed up, from New Jersey to Canada to Ireland, eager to help the cause, which includes an online memorabilia auction that stretches beyond hockey, with all proceeds donated toward the playground effort and its $600,000 goal.
The current playground doesn’t meet the needs of its students in its current shape, there are gaping holes in the turf and the swings and slides were not designed for children with disabilities. If the goal is met, the school hopes to break ground this fall and complete the project next spring.
It seems trite to call it a silver lining but the family has searched in vain to find some meaning, some good out of the senseless deaths.
So they’ll run.
For John. For Matt. For a cause the boys so robustly supported in life.
“It’s not the way I’d want to build the playground, of course,” Jane said. “I tend to believe they’ll be up there, being able to listen to the children’s laughter. They’ll just really love the fact that the children will have a playground to play in.”

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LOWELL, Mass. – Junior Carlos Martinez (Coamo, Puerto Rico) recorded a double, as the UMass Lowell baseball team (17-32, 8-13 AE) dropped the home finale to the Boston College Eagles (25-26), 5-0, on Sunday afternoon. 

Sophomore Ryan Strand (Goffstown, N.H.) also added a double, while four other River Hawks recorded a hit. 

Redshirt junior Brendan Holland (North Andover, Mass.) started on the mound, going 3.0 innings with one strikeout and one earned run. Freshman Nolan Geisler (Bayonne, N.J.) went 3.0 innings, striking out one batter without allowing a run. 

Although the River Hawks got a quick first out to open the game, the Eagles struck early, using a single and a pair of stolen bases to put a runner on third, before a fielder’s choice drove the run in, putting the Eagles on top, 1-0. Holland locked in though, not allowing another base runner over the next two innings to keep Boston College from extending the lead. Meanwhile, looking to plate the tying run, UMass Lowell recorded a hit in each of the first three innings, highlighted by a one-out double to left center by Martinez, but were unable to drive in a run, keeping the score the same after three. 

Taking over on the mound in the fourth, Geisler went to work, getting the first batter to line out before ending the top half of the frame with a 4-6-3 double play. The freshman continued his strong outing in the fifth, collecting a strikeout while not allowing a hit in the inning to send his team up to bat. Stepping to the plate with two outs, Strand knocked a double down the right field line, but Boston College was once again able to escape without any damage, keeping it a one-run game through five. 

In the sixth, the River Hawks began to hit their stride on offense, as senior Conor Kelly (Hopkinton, Mass.) led off with a single up the middle. On the next pitch, senior Jake Fitzgibbons (Franklin, Mass.) laid down a near-perfect bunt, moving Kelly to second, but the Eagles locked down, not allowing the runner to reach home, keeping UMass Lowell off the board. In the top of the seventh, the visitors added to their lead, using a pair of walks and a pair of singles to plate two runs and make it a three-run game. In the next inning, they added one more, making it 4-0 heading into the bottom of the eighth. 

In the final two innings, the hosts looked to respond but were only able to get one runner on base on a single by senior Brandon Fish (Londonderry, N.H.). Meanwhile, the Eagles added a fifth run in the top of the ninth, sealing the 5-0 decision. 

The River Hawks are back in action on Tuesday, May 11, at the University of Rhode Island in Kingston, R.I. The first pitch is set for 3 p.m. at Bill Beck Field.