Coming off a career year, Boston Bruins star winger David Pastrnak is prepared to take on even more responsibility.
BOSTON – David Pastrnak sits at his stall in the locker room at TD Garden, surrounded by reporters and cameras at Boston Bruins Media Day. His ‘lettuce’ hair pokes out at all angles from underneath his ‘DP88’ cap as he sports a white, long-sleeved Bruins Centennial shirt ahead of the team’s 100th season.
The big question surrounding the Bruins is: How will this team follow up their record-breaking 2022-23 season? After Pastrnak crushed his previous career-highs with 61 goals and 113 points and finished second in the Hart Memorial Trophy voting as the NHL’s Most Valuable Player, the same could be asked of him. How will he follow it up?
“[You’re] playing [a] team sport, and for me it’s very hard to set my own goals,” Pastrnak said on Monday. “I want to get better every year, and that was my mojo since I got to the league, and I still have that, so I know I’m happy about that because that pushed me to work harder and to get better every single year over the summer.
“I want to score, I love to score in the league. It’s not easy, and I want to get better, so definitely I’ll try to do it again.”
The 27-year-old winger is at the height of his prime and showed no signs of slowing down his break-neck scoring pace when he scored twice in Boston’s 4-3 preseason shootout loss to the Philadelphia Flyers on Sept. 29. However, with the loss of two franchise cornerstones up the middle, Pastrnak’s job won’t get any easier.
The retirements of Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci left behind a void for the Bruins, and Pastrnak will be without either as his center for the first time in his career. In slides fellow Czech, Pavel Zacha, who spent the majority of last season on the left wing, but showed what he could do at center when Bergeron and Krejci missed time due to injury.
With the team now trusting Zacha as its top center, Pastrnak reinforced that faith, but still acknowledged the differences.
“It’s definitely going to take some getting used to it, but we played together,” Pastrnak said of Zacha. “He was on the wing, and center is still different, but we are fortunate enough. We speak same language. … It’s very important to get together as a line and learn each other. So yes, it’s going to be different, but I wouldn’t say necessarily harder.”
On top of losing Bergeron and Krejci’s production at center, the Bruins also lost two significant leaders. The new captain, Brad Marchand, has 2011 Stanley Cup-winning teammate Milan Lucic back in the fold, but also has emerging leaders in Pastrnak and Charlie McAvoy to bridge the old guard with the new group.
“With ‘Looch’ [Lucic] coming back, it kind of lessens that blow of some of those guys leaving, and ‘Looch’ came up in that era that was built early on,” Marchand said. “The more guys we have around that can continue to establish that and lead the way, it helps a lot.”
In the eyes of Bruins management, it’s more than just help; it’s essential. General manager Don Sweeney said the culture put into place by the franchise’s leadership throughout the past 100 years has been key to the long term success, and that finding the next players to take the leadership mantle is what “keeps you up at night.”
“You got to continue to integrate younger players that are capable of being leaders both on and off the ice, as an extension of what was previously in place,” Sweeney said. “You can go through the list of our 100 years that we’re going to celebrate and realize that it’s been an awful long history, and rich history, of players of that nature.”
The players that shaped this current era’s culture – Zdeno Chara, Bergeron and Krejci, among others – have laid out the blueprint for what Pastrnak is expected to become.
“They couldn’t prepare us any better,” Pastrnak said. “We’ve been very fortunate and lucky enough to be learning from them every single day. I’m ready to take that step and be a leader.”
Armed with a new eight-year, $90 million contract he signed on March 2, Pastrnak enters his 10th NHL season with a larger sense of security than ever before. He’s locked in with Boston for the long haul, and now the team’s scoring leader will be counted on to help lead the locker room as well.
So how will Pastrnak follow up what he did in 2022-23? He could top it with his second Rocket Richard, or even winning the Hart Trophy this time around. As far as hardware goes, he only has one goal in mind.
“It’s very simple: it’s a championship,” Pastrnak said. “I want to bring the championship back to Boston, and this has been my big motivation since I’ve got to this room. I’m starting my 10th season here in Boston, so it’s time and just definitely motivation to win the championship above anything else.”