NHL Notebook: His road to NHL has been anything but linear, but a healthy Jakub Zboril ready to seize his ' biggest opportunity' yet

When Jakub Zboril’s knee clanged into the boards in Nashville last December, even a committed optimist like him could see the writing on the wall.

As the Bruins training staff assessed the state of his knee off the ice, Zboril knew that the next month-plus of game action was going to be spent on the shelf — a frustrating bump in the road following an encouraging 10-game stint back up in the NHL ranks. 

Of course, nothing has necessarily come easy for the 25-year-old defenseman ever since he was plucked out of the first round of that infamous 2015 NHL Draft. But given the returns he put forth throughout November, this latest ailment seemed more like a temporary setback, rather than a complete derailment of his 2021-22 campaign. 

That is, until he received a phone call from the team’s medical staff a little over a week later. 

“They checked my knee and they're like, 'Oh, well, everything looks good, maybe just a big bone bruise, so you're gonna go home and wait for the swelling to get down,’ And all of a sudden, I had an MRI like 10 days later,” Zboril said to BostonSportsJournal.com earlier this week at Warrior Ice Arena. “I'm walking in the Prudential Center and all of a sudden I get a call and they say, ‘Hey - sorry, Jake. I'm really sorry to hear about your injury — you're done for a season.' And I just sat down and almost started crying, like, ‘What the (expletive) just happened?’”

It was the latest devastating development for a D-man who, after being saddled with a lingering narrative regarding his draft status and extended developmental timeline, was poised to finally achieve lift-off and secure a featured spot on Boston’s depth chart. 

For every first-round selection who thrives immediately up at hockey’s highest level, there are countless other teenagers who feel the weight of (often unfair) expectations thrust upon them. 

For some, a bevy of injuries proves to be too arduous of an obstacle when it comes to making that next jump in their development. Some simply don’t see their skillset translate to the next level. In Zboril’s case, the extended time he needed to marinate down in the minors — especially when contrasted with the rest of his draft class — prompted him to delete social media in order to tune out the venom routinely tossed his way while working on his craft with Providence.

Add in a myriad of other injuries — headlined by this last year’s ACL tear — and it wouldn’t come as much of a surprise if a younger blueliner like Zboril would have grown apathetic toward the process required to make it up to the NHL.

But even during those grueling months of rehab this summer, Zboril didn’t feel discouraged when it came to his ongoing goal of securing regular minutes on Boston’s D corps. 

"I would just say, in my career so far, coming over to Canada — there's always some setbacks for me personally,” Zboril said. “So I feel like I learned how to deal with it. I just feel like with another setback — just shut up, work hard and come back even stronger after this."

Of course, Zboril’s play when he was in the B’s lineup last fall should stand as a suitable springboard for the skater to build off of for this season. 

Even though he was pressed into service last season due to a slew of injuries, a healthy Zboril was going to make things awfully hard on Bruce Cassidy and his staff once the B’s D corps was back at full strength — with the Czech blueliner logging 16+ minutes of ice time in six of his 10 games while also recording three assists.

It’s a comparison we often toss out there when it comes to Zboril’s game, but he’s a bit like an offensive lineman when he’s playing at a high level — the less you notice him, the better he’s probably playing. 

He’s not flashy, but Zboril’s efficient transition game, willingness to activate off the blue line and ability to dole out a heavy check makes him an effective cog when he’s on his game. Of course, those strengths have always been present in his on-ice repertoire, with that two-way skillset standing as the primary reason why the B’s opted to select him 13th overall back in 2015.

For Zboril, his breakthrough showing last November was not a byproduct of any adjustments with his on-ice product.  

"It was mostly just my attitude — my mentality going into games,” Zboril said of what accounted for his strong play last season. “I came up with this idea of me not being nervous about what's going to happen out there and just go out there and show what's in me. Because this is the big stage, this is the NHL and why would I be worried about making a mistake? Just go out there and show that and sell myself."

Even though he only played in 10 games, Zboril apparently made quite the pitch to his team, considering that Boston rewarded him with a new, two-year extension back in May — keeping him in place as a useful asset up with the big club moving forward.

"It just meant so much to me,” Zboril said of his new deal. “We started to talk about the contract maybe like two months into the injury. And me, not not knowing what's gonna happen next year — I heard the contract planning for me and I'm like, 'Oh my god, this is so nice.' And that just lifted my spirits a little bit. All I had to take care of was myself, basically, and not worry about what's gonna happen next year. So that was really a big step for me.”

For the first time in a long time, timing might actually be working in Zboril’s favor this fall. For as much as the Bruins seem destined to tread water in the upcoming months with both Charlie McAvoy and Matt Grzelcyk on the shelf — those vacancies do open the door for Zboril to earn significant minutes out of the gate for the Bruins.

It’s an opportunity that Zboril is not taking for granted, especially with potential top-four reps available, potentially on the right side. After his strong performance last season, Zboril is entering this fall with renewed confidence in his own game, along with the added comfort that comes with successfully cutting one’s teeth up at the NHL level. 

It also helps that Zboril (one of five Czech players on the Bruins’ roster) will be sharing a locker room with Pavel Zacha — with the duo knowing one another since childhood while growing up in the city of Brno, Czechia. 

“We grew up together, we went to school together,” Zboril said of Zacha. “We were always those two buddies who were always (making) problems. Growing up together on those national teams … we were just a little wild.”

At this stage of his career, Zboril likely isn’t the top-pairing stalwart that the B’s envisioned that he’d be seven-plus years ago. But don’t discount Zboril’s potential to still be an everyday contributor up at the NHL level. 

It hasn’t been the easiest road, to say the least. But at long last, Zboril seems ready to take that next major leap forward in his still young career. 

"I'm just excited for the challenge," Zboril said. "We have a couple of guys injured right now and this is my biggest opportunity to date. I'm just really excited to get things going and just being there with all the guys on the ice again. I don't even know how many months it was for me since I skated with all of them. I'm just super excited for it.”

OTHER NOTES

An upswing in free-agency market continues to benefit Pastrnak

Bruins fans may not be reaching for that DEFCON 1 button following David Pastrnak’s recent comments regarding his next lucrative contract — but that doesn’t mean that the B’s top sniper is necessarily in a rush to sign at the dotted line. 

Even if Pastrnak seems content in Boston and remains optimistic about all parties eventually agreeing to a deal, this is still a business. And frankly, all one needs to do is look across the rest of the league to see just how tantalizing Pastrnak’s next payout could be. 

Given Pastrnak’s age (26) and established track record of elite production (240 goals, 504 points in 510 games), he’s already setting himself for a larger payday than older wings like J.T. Miller (seven-year, $56 million), Jonathan Huberdeau (eight years, $84 million) and Johnny Gaudreau (seven years, $68.25 million).

And, in what has become a recurring trend this offseason, more teams are doling out hefty contracts to promising (but still largely unproven) players — with Ottawa handing Tim Stutzle (he of 87 career points) an eight-year contract that will account for an $8.35 million annual cap hit. 

It’s an evolving market that an established veteran like Taylor Hall believes can benefit all players moving forward — even if it gives Pastrnak and his representatives even more leverage when it comes to getting the B’s to pay up.

"I just think it's a domino effect,” Hall said of the hefty signings this offseason. “Once a couple of signings like that happen, teams go, 'Okay, that's the market — can I get ahead of it in some way?' And I don't hold that against those players at all. There's a lot of guys that say 'Okay, they're just getting paid on potential,' but that's the league. And those guys are also forfeiting eight years of their prime career for some security and I don't blame them for that at all. It's great for them. I basically did the same thing. 

“I signed for 10 percent of the cap and I was 20 years old and I was coming off of shoulder surgery and a concussion and I was basically taking some security with a franchise that I really wanted to play with for a long time. That's the league now and there are guys, hopefully, the UFAs coming up that deserve a lot of money — hopefully they can get paid as well. I want to see those guys get paid. It's good for the league. It's good for marketability — to show fans that hey, these guys are worth this amount of money. We should go watch them play, so it's great.”

Czeching In 

When asked last month about the primary factors that led to his return to Boston on a one-year deal, David Krejci was quick to delve into the appeal of once again playing with his fellow countryman in Pastrnak — especially after the two reunited at the 2022 World Championships earlier this summer. 

So, how exactly did Pastrnak make his pitch to Krejci during their time together back over in Europe? 

"A couple apples at Worlds, passing him a couple of empty-netters,” Pastrnak said with a smile. "Let him win at cards. Grab a couple of beers in Czech — and he's back. Obviously been talking a lot and I can't wait to have him back and get things going."

As for that Instagram video that Pastrnak posted back in May — which first hinted at the potential of Krejci’s eventual return? 

"It's funny, because I didn't even tell him that I was filming it," Pastrnak said. "We were just walking, so he had no clue that I was doing it. It's not like I prepared him that I would do it. I did film the video without him knowing. But I asked him obviously if I can post it and he was fine with that. ... But yeah, definitely didn't expect the reaction after the video was posted. It was kind of funny, because I don't think he was anywhere near about making a decision and what he was gonna do, so it was funny."

Beecher making his mark in Buffalo

We'll be rolling out an extended review of the 2022 Prospects Challenge once it wraps on Monday up in Buffalo, but there's already been plenty of positive developments through two games — especially Johnny Beecher continuing to find his scoring touch with a pair of goals. Good to see Beecher continue to etch his name on the scoresheet, especially after posting five points in nine games with the P-Bruins last spring.