By: Nathan Anderson | Follow me on Twitter @dairybeast
After scoring in Saturday night’s 5-2 loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs, David Pastrnak now has three goals in nine games to start the 2021-2022 season. The slow start is not what Bruins’ fans have come to expect from Pastrnak, who has averaged a point-per-game every season for the last three years. Fans should not panic just yet, however, as there is still plenty of time for the forward to find his game again, and I think he will.
When Pasta is at his best, he’s firing the puck from all angles and is lethal on the power-play. The Bruins’ power-play was shaky at best to start the season. At times they looked downright dreadful. Recently though, the powerplay has been heating up. They scored one goal with a man up against the Leafs and three (all coming from Patrice Bergeron) against the Red Wings the game before.
This is excellent news for Pastrnak, especially if Bergeron continues to be a weapon in the high slot. After scoring three times from that position and assisting Taylor Hall’s goal against Toronto, teams may choose to key in on the Captain as long as he keeps showing that he can be dangerous from that area. This may open up a seam for Brad Marchand, Taylor Hall, or Charlie McAvoy to find Pasta in a good spot to unleash his one-timer. That’s exactly what he did against the Leafs at even strength.
In the past, Pasta has scored in bunches. Last season alone, he had three hat tricks, including one in the playoff against the Islanders. That’s how it sometimes goes for guys like Pastrnak. Scorers go through slumps, and sometimes it takes a lucky goal to kick start a great run of scoring. Pastrnak did get a bit lucky with his goal on Saturday night, as it was probably a shot that goaltender Jack Campbell should have saved. That may be exactly what he needs to get going, though, and I would not be surprised if he starts scoring at will soon.
For any fans out there that are starting to panic, I want to try and calm you down a bit. We are not dealing with someone who had one good season and now is falling off the map. Four out of the last five seasons, Pastrnak has scored at least 30 goals. The only season he did not reach the 30 goal mark was last season which we all know was an outlier because of the shortened season.
While it has been a very tough start for Pastrnak’s standard, I would advise fans to try and let him break out of his own slump. Often the buzz around a player slumping only adds to the weight on their shoulders. We have seen Pastrnak score in bunches for the last five years, and there is no reason to believe that he will not do it again this year.
Pasta typically averages about three to four shots per game the last couple of seasons, and right now, he is averaging almost five shots per game this year. If he keeps shooting the puck, he will score goals. All it takes is one good scoring game to make Pasta’s stats look a lot better. We are looking at a small sample size right now. I think as the season goes on, we will see Pasta’s numbers even out back to where they should be.
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