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Bruins name Krejci, Kelly alternate captains

KrejciKelly

Tuesday proved to be captaincy day across the NHL.

With new sweater letters being assigned in Buffalo, Edmonton and (eventually) Tampa Bay, Boston got in on the action by announcing that David Krejci and Chris Kelly would fill the alternate captaincy void left by Andrew Ference -- who’s now captaining the Oilers.

Krejci and Kelly will rotate wearing the “A” and join a Boston leadership group featuring Zdeno Chara and the club’s other alternate, Patrice Bergeron. Their appointments make plenty of sense -- Krejci has spent his entire seven-year career in Boston, appearing in over 500 games, while Kelly has been a key role player since arriving from Ottawa in 2011.

Contractually speaking, both players will be in Boston until at least 2015, at which time Krejci is scheduled to hit unrestricted free agency (Kelly’s up in 2016).

It’ll be interesting to see how the alternate captaincy will affect Krejci’s negotiations when it comes time to create a new deal -- the B’s already have some big-ticket contracts on the books for 2015-16, including Tuukka Rask ($7 million), Chara ($6.9 million), Bergeron ($6.5 million), Milan Lucic ($6 million) and Brad Marchand ($4.5 million).

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