The price to lock up David Pastrnak isn’t going down any time soon. If anything, it only went up during the Bruins’ trip to California.
Pastrnak recorded his 15th career hat trick (including playoffs) in Sunday night’s 7-1 win over the Anaheim Ducks and tacked on an assist for good measure. He finished the West Coast swing with seven goals in three games and now has 32 on the season.
Only Connor McDavid (33) has more this season. Only McDavid and Edmonton teammate Leon Draisaitl have more points than Pastrnak’s 58.
With the Bruins now at 40 games played (with an incredible 32-4-4 record), they are one game shy of the exact midway point of the season. You can do the math and figure out that Pastrnak is on pace to top 60 goals this season. In fact, he’s on pace for 66.
If he gets there, he will enter some rarefied air in Bruins history. Only one Bruin has ever scored 60 goals in a season: Phil Esposito, who did it four times in a five-year span from 1970-75. Cam Neely would have in 1993-94 had he not needed to sit nearly every other game to rest his injured knee. He finished with 50 goals in 49 games.
When Pastrnak was robbed of a 50-goal season by the COVID pandemic in 2019-20, he said he was more upset about missing out on a chance to get 100 points (he finished with 48 goals and 95 points in 70 games). Well, he’s on pace to blow past that mark and get to 119 this season. He would be the sixth Bruin to top 110 points in a season, joining Esposito (6x), Bobby Orr (5x), Adam Oates (2x), Johnny Bucyk (1x) and Barry Pederson (1x). Oates was the last to do it in 1993-94.
Pastrnak is scoring no matter the situation and no matter what line he’s on. Two of his goals and three of his points on Sunday came at even strength. He’s now tied for fourth in the NHL in even-strength goals (20) and even-strength points (34). He also scored another power-play goal and is now tied for fourth in both power-play goals (12) and power-play points (24) as well.
He began the road trip with Patrice Bergeron and Brad Marchand, as coach Jim Montgomery opted to reunite the Perfection Line with Jake DeBrusk out. They rediscovered their chemistry right away, scoring goals like the one below.
Pastrnak ended the road trip with David Krejci and Pavel Zacha, as Montgomery decided to change things up again and reunite the Czech Line. All they did was outscore Anaheim 4-0 when they were on the ice, scoring three goals themselves and helping to set up another for Hampus Lindholm in his return to his old home.
“I’d call him an artist, because he’s so creative and finds different ways to take you out of your seat when you’re watching him,” Montgomery told NESN when asked to describe Pastrnak after the game.
Pastrnak is putting together a special season for a special Boston team. It is hard to imagine a Bruins future without him. While there has been some smoke around his contract talks recently, including WEEI’s own Rich Keefe standing by his report that an extension is being finalized, there is not yet a new deal.
Until there is, that’s one cloud that will continue to hover overhead. Otherwise, it’s nothing but clear California skies -- and some rarefied air -- for Pastrnak and the Bruins right now.
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