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David Pastrnak returns to Bruins practice and other takeaways from training camp
"As soon as he steps on the ice, there's a certain presence."
David Pastrnak made his training-camp debut on the ice for the Bruins on Monday afternoon, with the star winger practicing with his teammates in an extended session revolving around the power play.
Here are three takeaways from Monday’s camp:
David Pastrnak hits the ice
Bruins fans can take a deep breath.
After missing the first few days of camp due to tendinitis in his knee, Pastrnak was a full participant on the ice for Monday’s practice, rejoining his teammates during an extended skate that centered around Boston’s power play.
It was ideal timing for Marco Sturm and his staff, given Pastrnak’s vital role as Boston’s top trigger man on the man advantage.
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“As soon as he steps on the ice, there’s a certain presence — what we were missing the last few days,” Sturm said. “But it was good energy, especially coming from him. … We have those pieces on the power play. Now, we just have to click.”
The 29-year-old Pastrnak, who was a full go during captains’ practices earlier this month, said that the tendinitis is not a new ailment.
“I played with it the whole year last year,” Pastrnak said. “So I wouldn’t be too worried about it. Obviously spent a lot of time in the summer to make it better, and it did get much better than it was last year. Obviously it wasn’t perfect. It’s not perfect yet. But it was perfect timing to try to get it even better … so nothing too concerning, it’s just something that’s nagging me for a very long time.”
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Pastrnak acknowledged that he has augmented some of his offseason regimen to alleviate some of the burden on his knee, including an emphasis on biking over running to maintain his conditioning.
This knee pain has not hindered Pastrnak’s availability over the years, considering he’s appeared in all 82 of Boston’s games each of the last three seasons.
Pastrnak — who skated with Morgan Geekie and Elias Lindholm during Monday’s practice — was asked if he believes this tendinitis will be an ongoing issue moving forward.
“I don’t know, dealt with it the whole year last year. … I guess it’s just something that time will tell,” Pastrnak said.
Honing in on special teams
After spending the first few days of camp working on areas of the game like breakouts, forechecking, and D-zone coverage, Sturm centered most of Monday’s sessions around special-teams play.
Group A’s personnel revolved around the penalty kill, with potential key cogs on that unit like Sean Kuraly, Mikey Eyssimont, Fraser Minten, and Nikita Zadorov all getting extended reps during the first practice.
Boston’s top power-play unit on Monday featured Charlie McAvoy quarterbacking a grouping that also featured Pastrnak, Elias Lindholm, Morgan Geekie, and Pavel Zacha.
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The PP2 personnel had both Hampus Lindholm and Mason Lohrei on the ice along with Viktor Arvidsson, Matej Blumel, and Casey Mittelstadt.
Given Boston’s expected struggles with generating consistent 5-on-5 offense when Pastrnak isn’t out on a shift, Sturm is placing a premium on revitalizing a power play that ranked 29th last season in success rate (15.2 percent).
“We never really had a chance to even work on it, talk about it. … It’s going to be a big key for us moving forward,” Sturm said of the power play. “We need our power play to get going. And we do have the pieces, I would say that. We just, with [new assistant coach Steve Spott] in, we’ve got a new teacher in the house, so I think it’s going to be good. We started today, and maybe that’s why Pasta came out today.”
As Spott, Sturm, and the rest of the Bruins’ coaches look to overhaul a Bruins power play that became far too stagnant and one-dimensional last year, Pastrnak noted that Boston will need to clean up its entries and cohesion in order to limit the one-and-done opportunities that led to limited time in the offensive zone last year.
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“There’s gonna be a lot of difference,” Pastrnak said of Boston’s changes on the power play. “Obviously, day one of getting in the different system. Even though it’s power play, it’s still gonna have to have some structure to be successful, because the game is changing.
“Penalty kills are extremely good — so you have to be on the same page with guys. And that was one of the many of our problems last year is sometimes people got away from being on the same page.”
Preaching patience with younger players
While Boston’s D-zone lapses were the most concerning takeaway from Sunday’s preseason-opening loss to the Capitals, Sturm was candid after the game about the up-and-down play of some of Boston’s younger skaters.
In particular, Sturm acknowledged that a line of Matej Blumel, Matt Poitras, and Alex Steeves had some struggles in the D-zone, along with some of the finer details of their game.
Poitras, who drew three penalties against Washington but was also out on the ice for three goals against, concurred.
“I think [my] details weren’t great yesterday,” Poitras said. “I felt like it was working hard and trying to get the puck, and do all that stuff, but I think [I] just kind of need to calm down and just pay attention to the details and just be in the right spots and kind of let the game come to me.”
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Even with those expected growing pains as younger players both find their footing while also learning Sturm’s new system, Boston’s head coach said that players like Poitras and Fraser Minten will be given several opportunities to build some momentum during camp.
“I mentioned it yesterday. They tried really hard. They worked hard,” Sturm said. “The feedback from them, what I got is that they were excited. They just want to do everything right. And seems like they did — especially in the first period — everything wrong, because, they were just too excited. So it got better in the second or third.
“You can see it a little bit on clips, but it’s going to take a little bit of time. I want to sit down with them anyway, in the next few days, just just give them some feedback and some clips of what I want to see. But what I got out of it yesterday is I just have to settle those guys down a little bit. They tried so hard. So I give them that, but we just have to be smarter than that.”
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