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Slipping further and further away from the Eastern Conference playoff picture 40 games into the season, and with just one win five post-Christmas contests, the Boston Bruins are a desperate club.
They also appear to be going for their final pre-trade hail mary, as they’ve called 2014 first-round pick David Pastrnak, freshly back from the World Junior Championship in Canada, back up from the Providence Bruins for the second time this season. These are dark times for a Boston squad that was straight-up embarrassed in a weekend of flat showings against both the bottom-feeding Ottawa Senators (an overtime loss captained by a defensive meltdown in the opening minute of the overtime frame) and a Sunday shootout loss to the Carolina Hurricanes (the second-worst team in the league this season).
The biggest problem for the Bruins in these games? Their lack of energy, speed, and finish. These are all departments where the 18-year-old winger has excelled throughout his young career, too.
In five games for the Czech Republic over the last three weeks, Pastrnak led all Czech players with seven points (one goal, six assists), and leads all Providence Bruin skaters in 2014-15 with 10 goals and 27 points in just 24 games with the club. Those 24 points, even with Pastrnak away from the American Hockey League during his stint with the Bruins and the WJC, are enough for 28th in the league.
Pastrnak’s even found (some) success in his NHL sample, with one assist in five games played. In five games this season, Pastrnak’s averaged 14:01 per game and has fired 14 shots on net. He’s logged some heavily sheltered minutes, especially on home ice, but the Black and Gold have by all means acknowledged the fact that No. 88 will have to skate within the Bruins’ top six if he’s going to be a legitimate contributor in 2015.
Julien said he doesn't know what Pastrnak's role will be yet.
— Joe McDonald (@ESPNJoeyMac) January 6, 2015Pastrnak wore a white jersey during practice this morning -- putting him on a line with Milan Lucic and David Krejci -- and that’s exactly where the B’s should put Pastrnak when he does hit the ice. You look at the other option (with Brad Marchand and Patrice Bergeron on the second line), and while it’s a duo that could make up for Pastrnak’s defensive issues as a teenager in the NHL, the Bruins need to find a way to get Lucic going and Krejci is dying for somebody who can shoot the puck.
It’s where he’ll need to fit in for this squad, and that’s where he should be cemented in for the rest of his NHL trial, and the numbers tell the whole story there.
Lucic has not scored in his last eight games (all with David Krejci back in the lineup). Lucic has also scored just once in his last 15 games, and just three times in his last 25 games, for that matter. The Bruins need to find a way to get him back on the scoreboard, and a line that forces defenses to focus on Krejci and Pastrnak, thus allowing Lucic to get into prime rebound/scoring areas could do that. It'd be a change from what's been the norm throughout Lucic's career, as Patrnak is nowhere near the power forward that Nathan Horton or Jarome Iginla was, and is more of a throwback to Lucic's 2008-09 season spent with Marc Savard and Phil Kessel to his right. But maybe getting back to those roots as a physical net-front presence is what Lucic, the subject of harsh criticism for what many have called a year that's signaling the demise of Lucic as a premier power forward, needs.
The Bruins have just four more games of Pastrnak to see what he can bring to the table this season, though, and that's an obvious concern. If he skates in a fifth, which would be his 10th of the year, then year-one of his entry-level deal kicks in. And the Black and Gold are going to need to know exactly what they have with the 5-foot-10 winger before they burn an invaluable year off his entry-level contract. The Bruins learned from the Seguin situation of 2010-11.
This was part of the B's plan, though. The biggest reason the Czech winger landed back in the American Hockey League in the first place was that the club wanted to save more than a couple games of their 'free sample' to see Pastrnak skate with Krejci, who was injured during his first call up. And now they have it.
But they’re going to be brutally honest and careful with their assessment of Pastrnak’s readiness to compete at this level, and though there’s an ‘evaluation of everyone’ underway by newly named CEO Charlie Jacobs, the B’s are not going to force a teenager to be their savior.
Though that may sound better than some of the alternatives that have been rumored around.
Ty Anderson has been covering the Boston Bruins for HockeyBuzz.com since 2010, is a member of the Pro Hockey Writers Association's Boston Chapter, and can be contacted on Twitter, or emailed at Ty.AndersonHB[at]gmail.com