Only eight players, including former Bruin Phil Esposito, have reached the 60-goal mark in back-to-back seasons.
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David Pastrnak keeps shooting, keeps scoring, keeps on keeping on, even with the Bruins’ top two centers, Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci, permanently off to the sidelines and luxuriating in their post-puck doctorates.
The two elite pivots are gone, but No. 88′s goals just keep coming.
Pastrnak, with an 11-13–24 goals line in 15 games on the heels of his career-best 61-goal effort last season, is scoring at a pace that would deliver another 60-goal season. The exact projection is 60.133 over an 82-game season, in case we have any analytics sticklers ready to demand full decimal point accountability.
Now let’s hold it right there for a second. That’s a pace for
another 60-goal season, two in a row, something done by a Bruin only by Phil Esposito in the ‘70s and not accomplished in the NHL at large in 30 years.
The last NHL playerer to put up 60 in consecutive seasons was Pavel Bure, the Russian Rocket, who posted 60 with the Canucks in 1992-93 and ‘93-’94. The second of those campaigns led the Canucks to the Stanley Cup Final against the Rangers, a playoff run in which the then 23-year old slammed home 16 more goals in 24 games.
“I thought he’d have a harder time producing,” mused Bruins coach Jim Montgomery, recounting a conversation he had with general manager Don Sweeney about Pastrnak on the flight home after Tuesday’s 5-2 win in Buffalo, “without Bergy and obviously Krejci to work with.”
In fact, added Montgomery, in exit meetings last spring, prior to the two elite centers announcing their retirements, he told Pastrnak to be ready for what would come this season.
Things, Montgomery informed Pastrnak, would be different without Bergeron and Krejci, along with their combined 1,168 career assists, scores of those attached to Pastrnak’s 301 goals prior to this season.
“We figured they were moving on, you know?” recounted Montgomery. “He just looked at me and said, ‘Yeah, I’m expecting it, don’t worry about it.’”
With a chuckle, Montgomery added, “That’s what he said to me! And now I don’t worry about it.”
Don’t worry, be happy … Pasta’s still got the party going.
Pastrnak, who scored the second goal in the win over the woeful Sabres, was not made available for comment after Wednesday’s workout in Brighton. Polite, amiable, and often humorous, the 27-year-old Czech winger has engaged substantially less frequently with the media as his profile as one of the game’s elite scorers has soared.
That’s too bad. Everyone would like to hear more from the club’s most prolific striker not to wear a No. 7 sweater, including those who cover the team on a daily basis, and especially his adoring fan base in Boston and across the league.
Fans love Pastrnak for his prolific scoring touch, his crafty puckhandling, his sense of humor, and his often avante-garde clothing choices, particularly the broad-rim hats.
Pastrnak’s run this season is all the more impressive because he has split time with two pivots, Pavel Zacha and Charlie Coyle, who are getting accustomed to his moves, while also growing into roles as full-time puck distributors on the top two lines.
“Pasta’s become more a puck possession guy,” said Montgomery. “I think it’s a little bit intentional, understanding that it’s going to take a while to create the kind of creativity that naturally happens when you play with a Krejci or a Bergeron, because they’re such intelligent hockey players. But he was already playing with [Zacha] and now we have [Brad Marchand] playing with [those two]. It makes us a little top heavy. But at the same time it gives us the creativity of them playing off each other.”
Entering Saturday night’s faceoff at TD Garden against the Canadiens, Pastrnak has 67 games to score 49 goals and place himself among the elite scorers in the game’s history. Another season of 60 looked like too heavy a lift. Suddenly, it could be in No. 88′s wheelhouse.
