David Pastrnak Has Saved A Bad Bruins Season From Being So Much Worse

Nothing has gone the way the Boston Bruins hoped this year.

Top free-agent signing Elias Lindholm has largely underwhelmed. So too has goalie Jeremy Swayman, who has had a hard time in his first season as Boston’s unequivocal starter. The team fired head coach Jim Montgomery in mid-November and later traded away captain Brad Marchand, along with other locker room leaders in Charlie Coyle and Brandon Carlo.

Put that all together, and it amounts to one of the most disappointing seasons of Bruins hockey in recent memory.

But while all else has failed, David Pastrnak has remained constant.

“I’ve seen him since day one, and he’s had some incredible seasons,” Bruins interim coach Joe Sacco said. “To still be able to produce at the rate that he has this year, with everything that’s gone on, it says a lot about him, not only as a player, but as a person as well, too. He’s one of those guys. The great players, they just want to keep going and going, and that’s what he’s been able to do.”

With three goals on Saturday night in a win over the Carolina Hurricanes, Pastrnak secured his fourth straight season with 40 goals and his fifth in the last six years. His five points in the game raised his season total to 94, making this the third consecutive year he’s surpassed the 90-point threshold.

To make it all the more impressive, like many of his teammates, Pastrnak began the year in a slump.

Through the first three months of the season, Pastrnak had just 13 goals. Since the start of the new year, his 27 goals are the most of any player in the league, and only Nikita Kucherov of the Tampa Bay Lightning has more points in that span.

But despite all that he’s done, it won’t be enough to salvage a lost season. With a record of 31-37-9, Boston is destined to finish near the bottom of the Eastern Conference and will miss the postseason for the first time in nine years.

As horrific as this season has been for the Bruins, it’s scary to think of where they’d be without No. 88.

“I don’t know where we would be,” said Lindhom. “But he has played some really good hockey for us and given us a chance most of the nights when we were in the mix. You look at, what does he have, 90-plus points and the next guy has 50? It’s pretty incredible to see what he can do out there. He’s a top player in the league, for sure.”

Pastrnak has factored in on 48 percent of the goals scored by the Bruins this season. Aside from him, Morgan Geekie is the only other player on the current roster with more than 20 goals.

The Bruins own the NHL’s 29th-ranked offense, averaging only 2.62 goals per game. Take away the 40 that Pastrnak has scored, and that number drops to a dismal 2.10, which would place Boston dead last and 0.4 goals behind the next-closest team.

Of course, there’s also his 54 assists.

Without Pastrnak’s help, Geekie, who’s had a career year, would have 11 goals to his credit, while Lindholm would only have nine, and Pavel Zacha would have just three.

But while he’s done so much of the heavy lifting on the ice, putting a bad Bruins team on his back and saved it from being absolutely terrible, it’s off it where Pastrnak has made the greatest impact.

In a year where so many leading voices have been pushed out the door, Pastrnak’s presence has prevented the locker room from splitting at the seams.

“He’s a leader,” Swayman said. ‘”He’s one of those guys that brings that positivity every day with that work ethic and knows that it’s going to come through, whether it’s getting on the ice early in practice or staying late and just doing the extra stuff. He’s gotten results from that his whole career. That’s why we all have confidence. We never lost confidence in him, and that’s something that we can all build off of and will. What a deserving player.”

In every way, shape, and form, Pastrnak has been far better than what the Bruins have deserved this year.

When everything else has fallen apart around him, he’s held up the roof and stopped it from completely caving in.

“I will never take a day for granted here,” said Pastrnak. “I am super honored to wear this jersey and play for this organization and city. It’s amazing to see the Garden happy and loud and enjoying themselves. It’s fun, and it’s motivational for the players, too. I take a lot of pride in being a Bruin.”

This was not what anyone wanted for this season, especially Pastrnak himself.

But in his position, it’s all he can do, and it’s far more than what anyone else is capable of.

FOLLOW ANDREW FANTUCCHIO ON 𝕏: @A_FANTUCCHIO

FOLLOW BOSTON HOCKEY NOW ON 𝕏 AND FACEBOOK