Zacha's First Goal and What It Means For Boston

David Pastrnak (five goals) and Brad Marchand (seven points) have started the season on torrent scoring paces. It’s par for the course for the Boston Bruins’ two most important offensive players in the first year post-Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci.

However, some of the supplementary pieces looking to fill in the gaps were playing out of the rough to start this year, Pavel Zacha chief among them.

It’s not that he was playing poorly. In fact, Bruins coach Jim Montgomery went out of his way to praise the 26-year-old center for how he’s been playing before Saturday’s 4-2 win against the Los Angeles Kings. It just wasn’t showing up on the score sheet.

“I’m actually surprised [he hasn’t scored a point,]” Montgomery told reporters in Los Angeles. “I just watched the film back, and I watched it obviously from behind the bench. I’m really happy with Pavel’s play. I’m not concerned, the points will come because he’s playing hard, he’s playing 200-foot hockey for us. I think he can be a little more selfish and shoot more pucks.”

Zacha tallied an assist later that night. Then on Tuesday, he finally chipped in a goal.

Zacha scored the first marker in Boston’s 3-0 win against the Chicago Blackhawks at 3:50 of the second period. Jake DeBrusk sent the puck back to Kevin Shattenkirk at the point, and he fired towards Zacha’s stick positioned in the slot. Zacha made contact, deflecting the puck up into the top corner of the net where Chicago goaltender Petr Mrazek had no chance to grab it.

"It was good. I just kept working, stick with it. I think just try to do the right things, and hoping it's gonna go there," Zacha said. "In today's game especially, trying to start the team up there. I was lucky to be able to, you know– it was a great shot from Shattenkirk there, too. He saw me net front and just shot it for me, and it was an easy tip."

Zacha scored a career-high 21 goals last season, and will be relied on to match, if not exceed, that total if the Bruins want to succeed this year. It’s helped that Matt Poitras, who also scored in Tuesday’s win for his third goal of the season, has been contributing ever since his surprise emergence in training camp.

"[Poitras has] been really good, I think," Zacha said. "Especially as a young guy too, being really good defensively too, being hard on pucks, winning the puck battles. It's something that, you know, it's really hard, and he's been doing a great job and creating chances, scoring goals. I think it's been great to see him getting better with every game."

With the monkey now off Zacha’s back, and Poitras' strong start as the 2C, both could go a long way for this Bruins team. Their play out of the gate hasn’t been perfect, but their record is, and they’ll take that.