BHN Daily: Bruins Pastrnak, Marchand Voted Best By NHL Peers

While the Boston Bruins aren’t playing at the beginning of this week while in the NHL’s COVID Protocols, they did get recognized for having two of the top-10 NHL wingers in the game as voted by their peers and NHL talent evaluators in an ESPN.com poll.

They were already part of the NHL Network’s top-20 wingers prior to the start of the season, but this is next level given who is doing the voting. David Pastrnak was voted overall No. 1 as the top winger in the league by 10 players and 10 talent evaluator-types that were voting anonymously, and Brad Marchand was voted in the seventh spot with this glowing endorsement from one of his rival players in the Eastern Conference.

“I love everything about the way he plays,” the player said. “His grit, his poise with the puck. The way he shoots and the way he passes. He can play on the power play and the penalty kill. And he’s a winner because of it.”

Pastrnak is in the NHL’s top-20 in goals (14 goals in 21 games) despite missing the first few weeks of the season and the Bruins going through a couple of COVID-related pauses, and Marchand (12 goals and 34 points in 28 games) is just outside the NHL’s top-10 in scoring in what’s been a Hart Trophy-level season for him. Both should be among the NHL leaders once the B’s are able to catch up to the rest of the NHL with their makeup games, but it’s clear that everybody around the NHL recognizes their greatness even in moments when they are not quite atop the stat leaderboards.

Now on to the rest of the BHN Puck Links:

*It looks like the Montreal Canadiens and the North Division are now succumbing to some COVID Protocol issues after they had done a pretty good job keeping it out of Canada for most of the season. (Sportsnet)

*Looks like the UMass hockey dressing room is getting a pretty sweet upgrade thanks to some good friends of the program. Love it. (UMass Athletics)

*What in the wide, wide world of sports is wrong with the Calgary Flames? Here they are in a pretty low class move keeping the puck from an Ottawa Senators rookie goalie after he earned his first career NHL win. I just don’t get it, but it at least partially explains why the Flames have underachieved the last few seasons.

Low class move https://t.co/XcF5vuSzeQ

— Joe Haggerty (@HackswithHaggs) March 23, 2021

*It looks like we’ve got more hockey people, aside from FOH (Friend of Haggs) Pierre McGuire, joining the Adam Fox Fan Club as Larry Brooks wrote an ode to him this time around. (New York Post)

*Seems that the St. Louis Blues have hit a bit of a wall as they got pounded by the Vegas Golden Knights. (St. Louis Today)

*Keegan Kolesar scored his first NHL goal for the Golden Knights and apparently it was pretty darn sweet. (Vegas Hockey Now)

*A little bit of a Boston Bruins perspective in a new episode of the Cam & Strick podcast as they have Bruins Director of Player Development Jamie Langenbrunner on to talk about his hockey career.

*For something completely different: Looking for all of the Easter Eggs from the first episode of the Falcon and the Winter Soldier? Well, here they are. (ScreenRant)