The Bruins have to get David Pastrnak taking pictures once more this yr
Boston Bruins
“I might love to attain targets once more, clearly. However you guys understand how I really feel about playmaking.”
On a Bruins depth chart rife with uncertainty, youth, and query marks, David Pastrnak stands as a continuing.
The 30-year-old Bruins winger has a longtime observe document of shredding opposing defenses, whatever the personnel round him.
Regardless of all the overhaul that has impacted Boston’s ahead corps because the finish of the Bergeron period, Pastrnak has continued to raise his sport.
He has reached the 100-point mark in 4 straight seasons, scoring 180 targets and 429 factors over that stretch of 323 complete video games.
He could not be the trigger-man on a line subsequent to Patrice Bergeron and Brad Marchand. However, Pastrnak has augmented his sport lately as some of the gifted playmakers within the league — rating first within the NHL in main assists at 5-on-5 play because the begin of the 2023-24 season.
It’s a luxurious for Marco Sturm and his teaching workers on the subject of using Pastrnak. In any case, the Czech-born winger has seemingly pushed no matter grouping he’s been with over the previous few years.
However might Boston — and Pastrnak, by extension — be even higher off by discovering the best items to fit round their finest participant?
It’s an ongoing course of for Sturm and the Bruins, one that might additional elevate an already famous person expertise if Boston has the willingness to transform its ahead corps within the coming weeks.
As a result of, at this stage of his profession, Pastrnak’s skills within the offensive zone are well-established.
Pastrnak may need first put himself on the map due to his blistering one-timer — a howitzer of a shot that hasn’t waned in energy through the years, as evidenced by his 61-goal marketing campaign in 2022-23.
However, the frequency with which Pastrnak uncorks that shot has dipped considerably recently, as he’s now extra of a playmaker than an outright finisher on a Bruins roster that has undergone a painful expertise drain and retool lately.
Pastrnak set a brand new career-high with 71 assists final season — oftentimes skating on a line with Morgan Geekie and Elias Lindholm. Pastrnak’s imaginative and prescient and skill to break down defensive constructions by drawing skaters in to him has benefited shot-ready teammates like Geekie over the previous few years.
However, Pastrnak’s standing as one of many league’s most feared snipers has taken successful consequently. His 29 tallies in 2025-26 stands as his fewest in a full NHL season because the 2015-16 marketing campaign.
He’s additionally lit the lamp on the facility play 19 occasions during the last two seasons (159 complete video games) — together with tallying simply two targets on the person benefit over the ultimate 41 video games of the 2025-26 marketing campaign.
A few of that may be a byproduct of Pastrnak placing fewer pucks on web, together with his 261 complete pictures final yr marking his fewest in a full season since 2018-19.
That goes hand in hand together with his shifting position as extra of a playmaker than shooter as Boston’s prime canine up entrance.
Talking final week, Sturm didn’t increase any alarms over Pastrnak’s offensive output, contemplating that the Bruins winger remains to be hitting triple digits in factors, yr in and yr out.
“He can do all of it. However I’m not at that time the place I say he’s going to drive me loopy as a result of he’s not taking pictures sufficient,” Sturm mentioned of Pastrnak. “I’m not there at that time but. Even final yr I used to be by no means there. There have been a couple of occasions, after all, the place I used to be like possibly he might shoot the puck extra.
“However then hastily, he makes an unbelievable play, and his linemate scores. So that you’ve acquired to be actually cautious with him as a result of he’s such a great participant and he’s so good. He creates a lot as a result of he’s that good. And I don’t wish to be in his ear on a regular basis. I all the time have to verify I catch him on the proper time. However so long as he’s producing, I’m good both method.”
For what it’s value, Pastrnak isn’t fretting over his dip in targets — as long as he continues to stuff the stat sheet with assists and drive play.
“I might love to attain targets once more, clearly. However you guys understand how I really feel about playmaking. I find it irresistible,” Pastrnak added. “I’ll all the time cross if I see a man in higher place to attain than me. After all all people needs to attain targets. That’s the sweetness half about it. However on the identical time … I’d like to do each.”
The Bruins might ideally have each on the subject of Pastrnak’s O-zone items. That may require shuffling up his linemates transferring ahead — or on the very least, discovering extra constant choices to pair with him.
Whereas Pastrnak spent most of his time subsequent to Geekie and Lindholm in 2025-26, he discovered himself tasked with driving a number of traces over the course of the season as a fast treatment for lagging offense.
In complete, Pastrnak was a part of 4 totally different Bruins traces that logged at the least 100 minutes of 5-on-5 reps final season.
The Geekie-Lindholm-Pastrnak line was probably the most utilized of that grouping, however Boston didn’t precisely tilt the ice in its favor when that line was referred to as on — with the Bruins getting outscored, 19-16, of their 347 minutes collectively in 2025-26.
In the meantime, Pastrnak thrived on a line subsequent to a pair of kids in Fraser Minten and Marat Khusnutdinov final yr. Boston outscored its competitors, 15-6, in that line’s 188 minutes of 5-on-5 reps.
Based mostly on the primary 4 days of Boston’s coaching camp, it appears as if Sturm needs to maintain Minten and Khusnutdinov subsequent to James Hagens, with Pastrnak opening the yr again on a line with Geekie and Lindholm.
That top-line trio might get their first look collectively this yr throughout Tuesday’s preseason bout towards the Flyers at TD Backyard.
“What I like about them is that they’re a menace,” Sturm mentioned of sticking with Geekie, Lindholm, and Pastrnak. “Lot of targets on that line. Additionally you have got a centerman — you don’t see it, however he takes care of these two with any errors. The largest factor is that they’re so expert and so they have the power to attain after they’re on the ice.
“The place they must be higher is simply taking good care of the puck higher. Just a few occasions final season they had been shedding pucks, pricey turnovers. They most likely spent somewhat an excessive amount of time in their very own finish. So if they’ll management the puck somewhat extra, it might be superb.”
Time will inform if Sturm and the Bruins preserve that line intact. or if Pastrnak is best served skating alongside different fleet-footed skaters like JJ Peterka, Hagens, or some other concoction of expertise that might immediate Boston’s finest participant to pepper the online extra typically.
It’s a activity that can probably bleed into the common season, given how abbreviated this camp and preseason slate is.
But it surely might make a Bruins offense already closely reliant on Pastrnak even higher if he begins discovering the again of the online extra typically — and help much more expertise round him on a quickly evolving Boston roster.
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