If David Pastrnak keeps up his pace, he has a shot to become the Bruins' all-time leading goal scorer
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When the league entered its 4 Nations Face-Off, no one had scored more than Pastrnak's 136 goals since the start of the 2022-23 season.
Leon Draisaitl
(133) or
Auston Matthews
(129), or the great
Connor McDavid
(118) or even the soon-to-be greatest of 'em all
Alex Ovechkin
(99). Only Pastrnak — a feat to be appreciated all the more when considering his last 75 goals have come on a team searching for a bona fide No. 1 center to get him the puck the past two seasons.
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Now with a team-best 28-40—68 line through 57 games (projection 40-58—98) this season, Pastrnak is in position again to reach 100 points (following marks of 113 and 110). If so, he'll become only the third Bruin to string together three 100-point campaigns, a mark equalled and surpassed here only by Causeway legends
Bobby Orr
(six straight) and
Phil Esposito
(five).
Though not a numbers guy, and still considering himself more a playmaker than a goal scorer, getting to 100 again would be important to him, Pastrnak said on the eve of the
'Yeah, you know, the kind of player I am … that's my standard,' he said during a quiet moment at the club's Brighton/Warrior practice facility. 'I set my standards high, right? So I definitely would be a little bit disappointed [not to do it] — because that would mean I didn't do a good enough job for the team. That's the way I look at it. It's not so much that I worry about [the number itself], where I end up. But I know if I get there, I did my part offensively.'
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Pastrnak, now with 376 career goals, has put a puck in the net at a rate of slightly better than one every other game (.514 per game) since pulling on Black and Gold. The club's all-time leading goal scorer,
All of which is to say, with Pastrnak now ranked seventh all time in Boston goal scoring, he has a solid shot at eclipsing Bucyk atop Mount Vulcan. In fact, if he can maintain that .514 goals-per-game clip, he would hit goal No. 546 only 331 games from now (good seats still available for late in the 2028-29 season).
Pastrnak today is some 30 pounds heavier, and significant degrees stronger, than when the Bruins selected him 25th in the 2014 draft. He had celebrated his 18th birthday only a month earlier and he was, by NHL standards, a featherweight 167 pounds.
'I had to get stronger,' said Pastrnak, thinking back to his pre-NHL days, playing in Czechia and later in Sweden. 'In Czech and Sweden, compared to USA, we start lifting in the gym way later than kids do here. So I think that's why I wasn't strong when I got here — I didn't start lifting weights until I was 16, maybe 17. Only had a couple of years in me. That first year, I got pushed around. Then I was maybe 180 the next year. With age and experience you become stronger, and the muscles are heavier …I love where I am now, 195-200 … I am strong enough.'
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Interim coach
Joe Sacco
was on the job as
Claude Julien's
assistant when Pastrnak arrived in the 2014-15 season. The kid's overall talent and 'raw potential' jumped out immediately, recalled Sacco.
'But just too easily knocked off pucks,' said Sacco. 'He had the determination from the start, but just couldn't do it, physically. You can never predict how many goals a guy is going to score, but you could see from Day 1 he had things other guys just didn't have. It was just a matter of him tapping into it.'
Bruce Cassidy
, during his long stint as coach of the AHL Providence Bruins, was on the job upon the arrival of raw rookies
Brad Marchand
(draft pick No. 71, 2006) and Pastrnak. Both have emerged as elite NHL scorers with a combined bounty of 797 goals.
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Both were similar upon arrival, noted Cassidy, in terms of their competitive will to score.
'But how they do it is different, right?' said Cassidy, now the Vegas coach, interviewed after he traded handshakes and hugs with Pastrnak outside the Garden dressing rooms following the Golden Knights' visit here Feb. 8.
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'Pasta is a one-on-one machine, with his moves, his speed and that one-timer,' said Cassidy, who directed Vegas to the Cup in '23. 'Marchy is one-on-one, too, but if you truly watch him, he is into you when he makes those one-on-one plays. He has that whack-the-stick move, gets into your body and kicks the puck, and his low center of gravity helps him. He beats you by coming into you, whereas Pasta beats you with his lateral ability, quick hands and shot. But they are both one-on-one guys who want to beat you. Not all are like that ... some are just shooters.'
The evolution of Pastrnak's thundering one-timer, in part, is what led Cassidy to move Pastrnak to the No. 1 power-play unit not long after he took over the bench from Julien in the spring of 2017.
'His one-timer's evolved so much,' said an admiring Cassidy. 'And he got stronger. He's not the same [now] as he walked through the door as a 20-year-old, [different than] some of the guys I've coached. He's put a lot of work into that.'
Never as prolific or intimidating as Pastrnak and Marchand,
Patrice Bergeron
(427 career goals and 50 more in the postseason) also developed into an elite goal scorer during his long tenure in Black and Gold. That trio has totaled 1,224 goals to date.
In a league with 32 teams today constantly seeking elite scorers, the Bruins, all their draft day misfires aside, drafted and developed three of them over the course of 20-plus seasons. Dating to Bergeron entering the league in the fall of '03, only the Penguins have done better.
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The Penguins drafted a mightier duo in
Sidney Crosby
and
Evgeni Malkin
, who've combined for 1,116 goals. Now in Tampa,
Jake Guentzel
added 219 goals during his seven-plus seasons in the Malkin-Crosby mix. Combined total: 1,335 goals.
Blackhawks stars
Patrick Kane
and
Jonathan Toews
put up 818 goals during their glory years in Chicago.
Patrick Marleau
and
Joe Paveski
scored 877 times for the Sharks (note: Jumbo
Joe Thornton
chipped in with 251, but he came from, uh, somewhere else).
Currently, the Maple Leafs are the only team that might match the Bergeron-Marchand-Pastrnak goal-scoring trinity.
William Nylander
(250),
Mitch Marner
(210), and Matthews (388) have put up 848 and still have many years to play — be it together in Leafs Nation or not.
Written to the richest deal in Bruins history (eight years/$92 million), Pastrnak is in year No. 2 making an average $11.25 million per season. He's paid to score, which he's doing at a rate that could make him the best we've ever seen in the Hub of Hockey.
Net results
Swayman may carry
load after the break
Bruins No. 1 stopper
Jeremy Swayman
returns to town Sunday, part of the Team USA squad that will work out at the Garden prior to the resumption Monday of the 4 Nations Face-Off on Causeway Street.
Swayman promises to be one busy goaltender upon return, and is expected to be in net here Saturday night vs. Anaheim for the restart of the Original 32. It will be the first of the 25 games the Bruins have on their regular-season schedule and Swayman, 26, could be the guy in, say, 22 or more. He might get them all if coach
Joe Sacco
opts to assign him double duty in the three back-to-back encounters remaining.
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'We went with
Tuukka
[
Rask
] all the time … I think all but one game,' said
Bruce Cassidy
, recalling how often he tabbed Rask when chasing a playoff after being installed as bench boss for the final 27 games (18-8-1) of the 2016-17 season. 'We went with [
Anton
]
Khudobin
one game.'
Rask wasn't the sole reason for the late-season surge. Similar to today, the Bruins struggled to score for the first four-plus months of the season, the lack of production ultimately leading to
Claude Julien's
dismissal.
'We started scoring a little more,' said Cassidy. 'We pushed the pace a little more offensively and got our [defensemen] involved a little more. I thought we started scoring and having a little more fun that way …but, yeah, you don't win without a goalie and Tuukka was Tuukka … always there.'
Rask finished 37-20-5 that season, what ended up his career high for wins and appearances (65).
Cassidy's recollection, nearly eight years later, was slightly off. Rask, a workhorse down the stretch, went 12-7-1 the final 27 games, spelled by a very capable Khubobin (6-1-0). Three of Rask's dozen wins were via shutout and he then played all six games in the Round 1 loss to Ottawa.
Swayman, who appeared in 40 games prior to the break, will return to action with an 18-8-4 mark.
Joonas Korpisalo
has gone 9-6-2 in 19 appearances.
Etc.
There is no roster freeze during the 4 Nations Face-Off, which wraps up with Thursday's gold-medal final (8 p.m.) at the Garden. NHL general managers remain free to wheel and deal all the way up to the March 7 trade deadline.
All of which leaves most clubs with 7-10 games to figure if they have enough for a legit Cup run or whether it's time to shake out the drawer full of long woolen socks for a retool.
The Bruins, bedeviled on offense (goal differential: -25), remain in dire need of a No. 1 pivot and a speedy/scoring shooter off the wing (like that Pastrnak fellow, right?). To the latter point, December waiver pickup
Oliver Wahlstrom
showed touches of flair and scoring sense in a few games of late, but no numbers to go with it. No. 1 centers aren't reasonable 'gets' at this time of the year, if ever. Figure the Bruins to be in retool mode.
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The Capitals, Jets, Star, Oilers, and Golden Knights led the league in points percentage at the break. All could decide to stand pat, but as we've seen with the Bruins at recent deadlines, feeling oh-so-close to a Cup often compels the strong to attempt to get stronger.
The Cup-defending Panthers ranked eighth in points percentage (.623) at the break, a spot that could prompt GM
Bill Zito
to pull a string or two pre-March 7.
The Panthers lost some back-end juice when letting UFA
Brandon Montour
walk to Seattle (seven years/$50 million) last July, along with
Oliver Ekman-Larsson
leaving for the Leafs (four years/$14 million). Those two combined for 17 of the back end's 36 goals last season, then added five goals and 17 points in the Cup run. The current bunch have scored 27 goals (led by
Gustav Forsling
with eight), but more is always better from the blue line come playoff time.
The Jets were on a tear prior to the break, riding a league-best eight consecutive wins (aggregate: 35-16) with ex-Bruin forward
Scott Arniel
behind the bench. General manager
Kevin
Cheveldayoff
looks wanting for absolutely nothing , especially with a power play sizzling at a league best 33.3 percent (reminder: they went 5 for 10 in two games vs. the Bruins). No need to tamper with the mix. It could come down to whether
Connor Hellebuyck
, now with Team USA, finally comes up big in the postseason. He's a brilliant stopper, but a career 18-27 in the postsesaon, winning only one game in three of the last four playoff seasons.
Keep an eye on the Golden Knights. They are balanced front to back, but 2-2-2 in their last six and GM
Kelly McCrimmon
should be hunting for scoring punch among the middle-six forwards.
If the Bruins
Matyas Sapovaliv
, a 6-foot-4-inch Czech center now a first-year pro (8-8—16 in 46 games) with AHL Henderson. Just sayin'.
Loose pucks
Johnny Bucyk
, like
David Pastrnak
, had a signature shot, but it wasn't a powerful slapper. Chief scored a boatload of goals while parked as an immovable granite block at the top of the crease, employing his soft hands to roof pucks under the crossbar. He ended each practice by emptying out a large bucket of pucks and roofing them, forehand and backhand, to the top shelf. It's increasingly a lost art in today's game, mainly because few forwards show the desire (read: courage) to camp out at the blue paint and take the punishment … Bruce Cassidy, acknowledging that Pastrnak arrived in Providence as a spindly rookie, noted how that's not always the case. Exhibit A: 18-year-old
Patrik Laine
arriving with Winnipeg, the Finn rookie already 6-4 and close to 200 pounds for the start of the 2016-17 season and scoring 36 goals and 64 points as a rook. 'Everyone,' recalled Cassidy, 'kinda knew, 'Wow, this guy shoots it harder than anybody.' ' Picked No. 2 in the '16 draft, Laine is now with the Canadiens and on a career restart at age 26. He has 216 goals in 508 games, a scoring rate of .425 goals per game …
Brandon Montour
, ex- of UMass-Amherst, won't see the playoffs this spring. The 24-29-4 Kraken are sure to be sellers. He stood 10-17—27 at the break, roughly the pace that produced 8-25—33 last year as a member of the far more talented Panthers … If the Jets win the Cup, it will mean a ring for ex-Bruin
Colin Miller
, now playing third-pairing minutes in his second season with Winnipeg. Claimed off the Bruins in the 2017 Vegas expansion draft, Miller came to the Bruins via Los Angeles in the swap that sent
Milan Lucic
to the Kings in June 2015. The Bruins also acquired the Round 1 pick that became
Jakub Zboril
(now home and playing in Czechia) and goalie
Martin Jones
(quickly flipped to the Sharks for
Sean Kuraly
and the Round 1 pick that became
Trent Frederic
).
Don Sweeney
was fresh in the GM's chair at the time. That bit of wheeling and dealing stands today as his best and most nimble work as front office horse trader.
Bruins' up-and-down year
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Why have the Bruins been so inconsistent this year? College hockey writer Andrew Mahoney says 'it's who they are.'
Kevin Paul Dupont can be reached at
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