It was a night of milestones for the Bruins in New Jersey Tuesday. They scored a season-high seven goals in a 7-2 win over the Devils. Mike Callahan scored his first NHL goal. Fabian Lysell recorded his first NHL point with an assist. Fraser Minten scored his first goal as a Bruin. Morgan Geekie registered his first career 30-goal season. Cole Koepke got to 10 goals for the first time. Jakub Lauko scored his first goal since returning to Boston.
But there was one milestone reached that stands above the rest: David Pastrnak tallied three points and now has 100 points for a third straight season. He is only the third Bruin ever to accomplish that, joining Bobby Orr (six straight from 1969-75) and Phil Esposito (five straight from 1970-75).
100 points is always an impressive accomplishment. It was impressive when Pastrnak finished with 113 two years ago while playing on the best regular-season team in NHL history. It was equally impressive when he got to 110 on a weaker-but-still-good team last year.
But 100 points on THIS Bruins team? One that sold at the deadline and is trending towards a top-five pick in the draft? You could argue this might be most impressive of all given how little help he has had around him.
“Well, it says that he's a very consistent player in this league offensively, one of the top drivers in the game,” interim head coach Joe Sacco said of Pastrnak on NESN after the game. “And to be able to do what he's done with everything that's kind of gone on this year, with all the changes and whatnot, it really says a lot about him. He's done really an incredible job this year as far as being a guy that's carried a lot of the workload offensively. But we know that he's that type of player.”
Pastrnak has nearly twice as many points as anyone else on the team – 48 more than second-place Geekie. That is by far the biggest gap between any team’s leading and second-leading scorer; the Tampa Bay Lightning are second with a 32-point drop-off from Nikita Kucherov to Brandon Hagel.
Speaking of Kucherov, Pastrnak is 15 points behind him and 16 behind Nathan MacKinnon in the overall scoring race, but he is actually outpacing everyone in 5-on-5 scoring. Pastrnak’s 62 5-on-5 points are four more than second-place Kucherov, and his 51 primary points (goals plus primary assists) at 5-on-5 lead Kucherov by seven.
Again, for Pastrnak to be doing that on this team is insane. His most common linemates this season have been Geekie, Pavel Zacha and, especially recently, Elias Lindholm. With all due respect to those guys – and Geekie, in particular, deserves a lot of respect for the season he’s had – it’s not the same as Kucherov playing on a line with Brayden Point and Jake Guentzel, or MacKinnon playing the vast majority of his 5-on-5 shifts with the best offensive defenseman in the world in Cale Makar, or Leon Draisaitl and Connor McDavid getting to play with each other on the power play and sometimes at 5-on-5.
Pastrnak now has a seven-game point streak. He’s had at least three points in each of the last three games. Before Lauko scored an unassisted goal in the second period, Pastrnak had factored in on 13 straight Boston goals, which is a franchise record and the longest such streak by any player since Jaromir Jagr in 1999. His assist to set up Geekie’s 30th goal Tuesday was a highlight-reel pass.
For the season, Pastrnak has factored in on 47.2% of all Bruins goals. Again, that is easily the highest mark in the NHL. MacKinnon is second with a point on 43.9% of all Colorado goals. The Bruins are plus-14 at 5-on-5 with Pastrnak on the ice this season; they’re minus-26 with him off it.
Pastrnak isn’t going to win the Hart Trophy this season. Players on bottom-five teams rarely even get votes. But Pastrnak really should get at least some consideration from voters as they fill out their top five.
Of course, trophies and milestones aren’t what Pastrnak wants most. He wants to win games and eventually a Stanley Cup, something he made clear again after the game. But for now, it’s worth taking a moment to appreciate what he’s done this year in an otherwise challenging season.
“Obviously, very honored. It’s not easy in this league,” Pastrnak told NESN when asked about reaching 100 points again. “But at the same time, I feel like that’s my job. Obviously, I wish it would be under better circumstances. It’s good, but nothing changes for me. There is only one thing that I’m chasing.”