At long last, Bruins benefit from a takeover game by David Pastrnak
"Obviously getting him going in the right direction offensively is a huge boost for our team.”
The 2024-25 season has not gone according to plan for David Pastrnak.
The 28-year-old winger is currently on pace to score just 28 goals this year — which would be his lowest total over a full 82-game campaign since the 19-year-old forward lit the lamp 15 times during the 2015-16 season.
Be it a sputtering Bruins’ power play (13.0 percent, 31st in NHL) or a severe regression in Pastrnak’s shooting percentage (8.7 percent, down from 13.7 percent career average), Pastrnak’s seemingly assured production has not been a guarantee this year.
It’s been a tough break for Pastrnak — and a devastating result for a Bruins team hampered by a lack of scoring punch across the roster.
As Pastrnak goes, so go the Bruins when it comes to consistently finding the back of the net.
And on Saturday night, it came as little surprise that Boston’s most complete performance in weeks fell on the same day Pastrnak submitted his best game of the season.
Pastrnak stuffed the stat sheet on Saturday in Vancouver, scoring his 11th goal of the year while adding three assists in Boston’s eventual 5-1 victory. It marked the 16th four-point game of Pastrnak’s career, and his first since April 9, 2023.
It was the long-awaited takeover game that Boston desperately needed from its superstar scorer, especially after the Bruins were outscored, 13-2, in back-to-back losses on this ongoing five-game trek out west.
“His game is all-around,” Bruins interim head coach Joe Sacco said postgame. “We all know that. He can score, he can pass, the ability to make plays. Obviously getting him going in the right direction offensively is a huge boost for our team.”
Pastrnak set the tone for the Bruins in the first period, posting a secondary helper on Brad Marchand’s power-play tally at 5:12 in the first period before recording the primary assist on each of his team’s next two goals.
He orchestrated Morgan Geekie’s fifth goal of the year at 8:08 in the first period — gathering a puck behind Vancouver’s net, shifting toward the far post, and feeding a pass through the blue paint and toward Geekie at the doorstep that was fired home to double Boston’s lead.
Early in the second period, Pastrnak set up linemate Pavel Zacha after winning a battle along the boards. Gathering the biscuit before it could be intercepted by Carson Soucy, Pastrnak fed a backhand pass through the legs of Vancouver forward Elias Pettersson that hit Zacha in stride.
Just seconds later, Zacha beat Canucks netminder Thatcher Demko with a backhand shot to give Boston a 3-0 advantage.
For all of the evident concerns over Pastrnak’s scoring drought, he has been able to accumulate points as the team’s top playmaker — recording 12 assists in his last 12 games.
“I’m a goal scorer,” Pastrnak said. “So far, I haven’t been this year. I haven’t got the looks. We were struggling a lot on the power play. Now the power play keeps coming last three, four games. It’s going to for sure be better. I always look forward to try to make plays. I don’t mind passes.”
Pastrnak finally found twine just 26 seconds into the third period, taking a drop pass from Charlie McAvoy, pushing Demko out of position with a quick stroll around the net, and beating the netminder with a wraparound finish to give Boston a five-goal cushion.
It wasn’t his usual avenue toward lighting the lamp via a blistering one-timer, but it was an encouraging sign for Pastrnak to see a puck finally slip past the goal line.
“I felt like I had some speed,” Pastrnak said. “Usually you need to have a lot of speed to do those wraparounds. It worked out. I obviously looked shot first. But he totally took the strong side of the net away. So I tried the wraparound. It’s nice. I don’t score many of those, honestly.”
The Bruins don’t care if Pastrnak scores via tips, rebounds, seeing-eye shots or other means beyond his potent shot or his customary array of dekes and dangles.
A confident Pastrnak is a productive Pastrnak — and the Bruins are going to need a lot more of that if they plan on consistently racking up points and repeating performances like Saturday night.
“He’s so talented, he’s so skilled and same thing, he works on his game more than any of us,” Jeremy Swayman (19 saves) said of Pastrnak. “It’s really awesome to see him get rewarded and we know he’s going to come up big every time.”
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