By: Tim Dumas | Follow me on Twitter @TimDumas
David Pastrnak is fun to watch. The same can be said for witnessing him climb the charts into the next decade.
The Boston Bruins, right winger joined an exclusive club on March 26, 2023, when he scored his 50th goal of the season in a win over the Carolina Hurricanes. (He added No. 51 one period later). “Pasta” is just the sixth Bruin to net 50 in a season – along with Phil Esposito, Johnny Bucyk, Ken Hodge, Rick Middleton, and Cam Neely – and the first in nearly 30 years after Neely scored exactly 50 (in just 49 games) during the 1993-94 season.
Pastrnak’s 50th also represented his 600th career point. If he can stay hot and reach 60 goals this season, that will give him an even 300. Either way, he is already eighth on the team’s all-time goal-scoring list; Neely (344) is seventh. His hat trick Saturday in Pittsburgh tied him with Neely for second in that category with 13; Esposito is the team leader with 26.
Boston’s leader in all-time goals is Bucyk, who finished with 545 in his 21 seasons. Pastrnak is more than halfway there. Bucyk had just one 50-goal season and was a consistent 25-30 goal scorer for much of his career; he totaled at least 40 just twice.
Esposito was the opposite, tallying goals in bunches. Beginning with the 1970-71 season through ’74-75, “Espo” scored 326 goals – an average of 65.2 per season – on the way to his 459 career goals with the Bruins, which ranks him second. His 76 in ’70-71 shattered the NHL’s previous mark of 58, set by Bobby Hull just two seasons prior, and held up until Wayne Gretzky zoomed past him with 92 in ’81-82.
But after that five-year block, Esposito began to slow down, only reaching 40-plus goals just one more time. With Pastrnak only 26 and signed through the ’30-31 season, he will likely become the Bruins’ all-time leading scorer well before his contract expires.
Through Saturday’s game, when Pastrnak netted his 54th, 55th, and 56th goals, he has 296 career tallies in 586 games. That’s an average of a goal every other game, or 41 over an entire 82-game season. But he appears capable of scoring 50 a season well into his 30s, and if he does so, he will eclipse Bucyk five seasons from now, in 2027-28, when Pastrnak will be just 31.
The key is good health and consistency. Washington Capitals right winger Alex Ovechkin is the greatest example of both. He has played at least 72 games 15 times over 17 non-COVID seasons, and the nine-time 50-goal scorer is within 72 goals (as of Thursday) of Wayne Gretzky’s record of 894.
Ovechkin is 37 years old and appeared to be slowing down when he scored 33 times at age 32, but he has hovered near 50 in each of his full seasons since then and has 42 this year.
No one is suggesting Pastrnak will approach 900 goals, but if he can stay healthy and productive, Boston’s first 600-goal scorer could be just six seasons away.
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