As David Pastrnak continues to torment defenses, look for opponents to bring the pain in effort to slow down Bruins' top sniper

All David Backes could do was shake his head. 

“He's playing a video game out there,” he said. “I don't know what's wrong with that guy. ... I don't have words."

The Bruins’ veteran forward was referring to teammate David Pastrnak, who, with a howitzer of a shot, tallied his 25th goal of the 2019-20 campaign during Boston’s 3-1 victory over the Canadiens Sunday night. 

Pastrnak’s tallies — enough to satisfy many NHLers over the course of an entire season — have been racked up in just 27 games. For reference, back in 2014-15, Brad Marchand led the Bruins in goals scored with 24 ALL YEAR (77 games). 

Pastrnak doesn’t appear to be slowing down anytime soon, with the 23-year-old sniper standing as just the 11th player in NHL history to score 25+ goals in a season through games played on Dec. 1, and the first since Mario Lemieux back on 1992-93. 

Given his stat line, it’s a fair assumption that many defenses have tried in vain when it comes to keeping a player of Pastrnak’s caliber contained in the offensive zone. 

Want to clog up his shooting lanes and take away with the middle of the ice? He’s got the hands and skating ability to bring the puck to your doorstep and cash in down low. 

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Maybe stack up a body or two at the blue line in order to prevent him from getting a clean entry? Easier said than done.

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Leave him alone at the left circle? Well, duh. You’re asking for trouble.

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And, as was the case on Sunday night, sometimes you just have to shrug your shoulders when a missile like this sails into your net. 



But for most of Sunday's matchup, Montreal opted for a simpler strategy when it came to trying to slow Pastrnak down. Namely, kick the snot out of him.

For as much as the NHL has transitioned from a league of size and snarl into a game dominated by speed and skill , there's still plenty of value to be found when it comes to negating an opponent's firepower up front by way of knocking them into submission, or, at the very least, wearing them down over the course of a contest

Just ask the St. Louis Blues if such a strategy is viable in today's game.

Rather than adhere to a stingy defensive structure or shadow Pastrnak whenever he hopped over the boards, Claude Julien and the Habs instead opted to get the winger out of his comfort zone by throwing their weight around against him early and often.

Twice during Pastrnak's 20:37 of ice time, he ended up flat on the ice off of a pair of heavy checks. One, delivered by Joel Armia from behind late in the second period, knocked Pastrnak's bucket clean off his head. In the following stanza, Ben Chiarot knocked Pastrnak to the cold sheet after the winger skated into the Habs' side of the ice.

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At this point, Pastrnak is no longer the wiry teenager from years past that was often knocked off the puck when a bigger body intervened. Still, the winger is not going to be expected to drop the gloves and retaliate whenever the opposition wants to try and sock him in the mouth. While Boston does have Zdeno Chara patrolling the blue line and the pending return of Kevan Miller does give the B's some much-needed grit — Bruce Cassidy did note postgame that Boston isn't going to put Pastrnak in bubble wrap whenever he's called out for a shift.

"Well, listen, that’s hockey, right? That’s sports. You can’t really protect him," Cassidy said. "I mean, you can get matchups where you keep him away from certain people, but that’s just going to take away from his game, so you can put him on the ice with certain type of players, but I think those days it used to be, well, you’ve got (Wayne) Gretzky and (Jari) Kurri, we’ll put (Dave) Semenko out there. You just don’t see a lot of that anymore.

"So some of it is, when he’s receiving the puck, he’s going to have to pre-scout, work back some of these more physical guys so he doesn’t put himself in vulnerable positions. Certainly, we can push back and I thought we did, it upped our emotional energy. We got in there and battled as a group, and that sometimes tempers it as well. If you don’t back each other up, teams feel like they can take liberties. I wouldn’t go as far as saying liberties on them tonight, I thought they just played them hard. Part of that’s just hockey."

Pastrnak certainly has no qualms about playing with a bit of an edge and throwing back whatever's thrown at him. In the final minutes of the middle stanza, Pastrnak and Canadiens winger Brendan Gallagher spent plenty of time ahead of a faceoff draw chirping at each other before getting into a kerfuffle. Seconds later, Pastrnak evaded a Gallagher cross-check and drew an interference call against Shea Weber, sparking a major scrap after shoving back against the 6-foot-4 Montreal defenseman.

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"There were times I’d probably get frustrated a couple years ago," Pastrnak said. But these days, it’s Montreal coming in the building, it’s nothing else expected, a physical and a really hyped-up game. ... (Gallagher) is just that kind of player. He's a good player and that's part of his game. So he's just doing his job. It's not going to get me off my game. Maybe it's even going to help me out."

Sure enough, less than 10 minutes of game action later, Pastrnak made Montreal pay, beating Carey Price with his blast from the right circle. Both Gallagher and Weber were on the ice as Pastrnak turned to the TD Garden crowd, arms spread, and took in the chorus of cheers from his latest highlight-reel snipe.

"That sort of reminded me of Guy (Lafleur) coming down the wing, blasting it from the top of the circle far side and in," Cassidy said. "Rick Vaive used to do it all the time, had that slapper on the ice that caught goalies all the time, so it was nice. ...  Listen, he’s arguably the best player in the league right now, or the hottest anyway."

Considering that just about every other defensive strategy has proven to be ineffective in curtailing Pastrnak's salvo of Grade-A shots this season, look for physicality to continue to be the prescription of choice for the opposition when it comes to grinding the Bruins forward down.

But so long as he can take that punishment, Pastrnak — as has been the case all season — will have the upper hand whenever he's got the puck on his stick.