The last time the Boston Bruins played the New York Rangers, David Pastrnak tied a franchise record with six assists in a 10-2 beatdown. This time around, he had to settle for three assists and his 900th career point. More importantly in the here and now, the Bruins had to settle for one point instead of two, falling 4-3 in overtime.
This really should have been a win for the Bruins. They led 3-2 in the third period against a Rangers team that had lost 11 of 13 and has the worst record in the Eastern Conference. But they couldn’t extend the lead, gave up the tying goal on a Will Borgen point shot that went off Andrew Peeke and in, and then lost in overtime on a Matthew Robertson goal where Pavel Zacha didn’t close quickly enough and Joonas Korpisalo got beat on a shot he probably should’ve stopped.
That kind of summed up the whole night for most of the Bruins: Close, but not quite good enough.
“We didn’t play our best game overall, but we had the lead in the third period,” Bruins coach Marco Sturm told NESN. “We didn’t decide that we had to grind it out for 60 minutes. Unfortunately, that cost us one point.”
One Bruin who definitely was good enough was Pastrnak, though. And the milestone he reached Monday shouldn’t be overlooked. With his three-point effort, Pastrnak leapfrogged Rick Middleton (898) on the club leaderboard and became just the sixth Bruin to reach 900 points with the team, joining Ray Bourque, Johnny Bucyk, Patrice Bergeron, Phil Esposito and Brad Marchand. Only Esposito has gotten there in fewer games than Pastrnak’s 804.
Monday night was just a continuation of the outstanding hockey Pastrnak has been playing for the last month. He now has a seven-game point streak. More impressively, he has 26 points in 13 games since Dec. 31. Only Tampa Bay’s Nikita Kucherov has more during that time.
Pastrnak has been most dangerous as a playmaker during this stretch, and that was the case again on Monday. On the Bruins’ first goal of the night, Pastrnak made a nifty pull-up move in the right circle before throwing a pass to the front. While the pass didn’t connect cleanly, the puck did sit perfectly right in front for Elias Lindholm to bury.
On the second, Pastrnak took a pass from Charlie McAvoy and wheeled into the slot for a shot. That shot got blocked, but Lindholm was once again the man on the scene to fire the loose puck home.
The third was the prettiest of Pastrnak’s assists, as he shielded off a defender before making a behind-the-back pass to set up Morgan Geekie for Geekie’s fourth goal in the last four games.
Pastrnak could have had a couple more assists in this one. He made two great passes to set up grade-A chances early in the game – one for Geekie, one for Lindholm. But Geekie pushed his chance wide and Lindholm’s one-time shot was turned aside by Jonathan Quick.
Twenty of Pastrnak’s 26 points during this 13-game stretch have been assists. On the season, he is now up to fifth in the NHL in assists (46) and sixth in points (67).
Pastrnak’s point total leaning so heavily towards assists may be surprising for those who still think of Pastrnak as a goal-scorer first and foremost, but that view of Pastrnak really should have changed a long time ago at this point. He’s been one of the most complete offensive players in the league, including his playmaking, for years now.
Pastrnak has topped 100 points in three straight seasons, and that’s not all because of his goal-scoring. He has topped 60 assists in each of the last two seasons. This year, he is on pace for 74 assists, which would shatter his previous career high of 63, and 107 points.
The Bruins are going to need Pastrnak to keep it up, because they remain in the final wild card spot in the East despite Monday’s overtime loss, smack in the middle of a tight playoff race. On Monday, they needed some other guys to step up around Pastrnak, though. If that had happened, Boston might have closed out a very winnable game.