The best of Pastrnak starting to show up
TORONTO — Rarely, if ever, do all a team’s parts work in synchronicity. When the Bruins are playing well and scoring goals, that typically means David Pastrnak has his name plastered all over the scoresheet.
Good working order doesn’t always mean things go to order — but it finally began turning Pastrnak’s way here Saturday night in the Bruins’ 3-1 win over the Leafs that left the Bruins with a 3-1 advantage in the best-of-seven playoff series.
Pasta isn’t perfect, but he is generally prolific. Over the last two regular seasons, the Bruins’ elite right winger scored 108 goals, second only to the Maple Leafs’ Auston Matthews (109). His 223 points over that same stretch ranked fifth in the NHL, behind only Connor McDavid, Nikita Kucherov, Nathan MacKinnon, and Leon Draisaitl.
Yet headed into Game 4 of the Boston-Toronto playoff series Pastrnak had been far from his intimidating, stick-smoking, point-producing self. His numbers were decent, respectable (1-2–3 in 3 games), but both assists came on empty-net goals, and his lone tally came in the Game 2 loss (3-2) at the Garden, his strike snapping a 1-1 tie late in the first period.
It changed in Game 4. Pastrnak, with help from Brad Marchand, potted his second of the series with 42 seconds to go in the second, boosting the Bruins to a 3-0 lead over the Leafs.
Pastrnak’s goal was the night’s jawbreaker, and possibly the series-maker, helping to propel the Bruins to a two-game lead in the series. The Leafs, their nerves frayed, now will have to sweep three games to continue their season. That work begins Tuesday night on Causeway St.
For all his goal-scoring power and might, Pastrnak also had but one power-play strike across the 37 games leading to faceoff in Game 4. The last time he really came out with the Pasta swagger was six weeks earlier, March 19, with his hat trick that helped pin a 6-2 loss on the lowly Senators.
Like virtually every NHLer known for scoring prowess, Pastrnak is absolutely beaming when the puck is going in the net off his stick. His smile alone could deliver a puck to the top shelf. When his scoring temp gets chilled, there is no thermometer necessary to get a reading. His look alone says things are frosty.
“I haven’t witnessed that with him — so far in the series,” coach Jim Montgomery mused late Saturday morning, following the club’s day-ofgame workout. “I just go back to [the playoffs] last year where, I think it was Game 5 [vs. the Pangoal thers] and that maybe he was getting [down].”
It was at that juncture last season, recalled Montgomery, that he pulled Pastrnak aside for a brief chat.
“I grabbed him and said, ‘I want to talk to you,’ ” said Montgomery. “And he said, ‘I want to talk to you, I’m going to be good tonight.’ He had this big smile on his face. I don’t know if you remember Game 6, but he was pretty special that game. And you know, that’s the great thing about a creative person and offensive weapon like he is, that he believes in himself and he competes.”
In Game 6, a 7-5 loss in Sunrise, Fla., Pastrnak connected for a pair of goals and landed a gamehigh seven shots on net.
In Game 3 here on Wednesday, Pastrnak reverted more to elite form, squeezing off nine shot attempts (his high for the first three games) but landed only one on Leafs goalie Ilya Samsonov. In Games 1-3, he totaled seven shots on net out of his total of 22 attempts. His average shots on goal (2.33) rated exactly half what he put up during the regular season (4.66) when his 382 total shots on net were second only to MacKinnon (405).
“The last game,” recalled Montgomery, referring to his club’s 4-2 win on Wednesday night, “I thought he could have had a hat trick in the first period. He didn’t hit his spots. He’s going to hit his spots.”
There was no missing his spot on the goal that made it 3-0. Pastrnak finished the night with four shots on net, squeezing off a total nine attempts.
The Montgomery-Pastrnak communication dynamic is interesting. The coach’s recollection of Pastrnak sounding so confident prior to Game 5 a year ago was near identical to a similar conversation he noted the two had at their end-of-season exit meeting last spring after the series loss to the Panthers.
In their farewell chat, before teammates Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci announced their retirements, Montgomery made clear to Pastrnak that things would be different in 2023-24, the coach presuming the two veteran pivots would choose to retire.
“We’re going to need even more from ya,” Montgomery bluntly told Pastrnak, who finished the season with career highs in goals (61), assists (52), and points (113).
In other words, nice job, kid, now give me more.
“And he said to me,” noted Montgomery, “‘Don’t worry, I got it.’ ”
Pastrnak finished the 2023-24 regular season with a line of 47-63–110. Overall, it was a slight dip, but Bergeron and Krejci spent the year pivoting only on rocking chairs, many rink lengths away from the winger who often cashed in their silken feeds.
“Yeah, his confidence in our one-on-one meetings gives me confidence,” said Montgomery, providing the assembled media with the laugh of the morning at Scotiabank Arena.
Not surprisingly, when asked what would be the key to Game 4, Montgomery pointed to the need for his club to generate “more Grade-A chances.” Pastrnak’s goal came on an A-plus-plus opportunity.
Montgomery did not specifically declare that Pastrnak would have to help that cause, but come playoff time, certain truths must be taken as selfevident. Be it at even strength or on the power play, Job No. 1 for the Bruins will be to find ways for Pastrnak to shoot more, and for him to be the scoring force in this series that he has been the last two seasons and for the large part of his career of 674 regular-season games.
For teams to succeed in the Stanley Cup playoffs, the idiom goes, their best players must be their best players. Finally, in Game 4, the better version of David Pastrnak began to emerge.