David Pastrnak should receive Hart Trophy consideration

Bruins

“The last few games, he’s just making us look like Sunday beer leaguers just hanging around.”

The Boston Bruins’ 2024-25 season will officially come to a close on April 15.

It will mark the third time in David Pastrnak’s career that the gifted winger will be on the outside looking in at the Stanley Cup Playoffs — and the first time in nine years that Boston won’t hold a postseason game on Causeway Street.

Given how miserable this current campaign has been for Boston, it comes as a cruel twist of fate that a lost season has also come at the same time that Pastrnak is playing arguably the best hockey of his career. 

And after becoming just the third Bruins player in franchise history to record three straight 100-point seasons (Bobby Orr, Phil Esposito) on Tuesday against New Jersey, Pastrnak’s brilliance on a cellar-dwelling roster is starting to draw some eyes on his viability as a true Hart Trophy contender this season. 

Count teammate Jakub Lauko among those who thinks Pastrnak should be in the running for the coveted honor as league MVP. 

“I saw some stats, like he’s got the most 5-on-5 points and primary [points], which is crazy,” Lauko told Boston.com of Pastrnak’s season on Wednesday. “I think he definitely should be in consideration for the Hart — because I don’t where we would be without him, and I think that’s the definition of Hart, right? The most valuable player for the team. 

“And I think he definitely still is one of the most important players not just for our team, but maybe in the whole NHL. There’s a couple more guys that you can say the same about. But just look at his stats and what he’s doing. Like it’s pretty obvious that he should be up there.”

Pastrnak’s bid at winning his first league MVP award may not be all that compelling, at least when measured against other contenders like Colorado’s Nathan MacKinnon, Tampa’s Nikita Kucherov, and Edmonton’s Leon Draisaitl. 

Beyond the fact that said trio all hold an edge in scoring over Pastrnak’s triple-digit output (41 goals, 59 assists), each player is carrying out key roles in their respective club’s entry to the postseason. 

Fair or not, stuffing the stat sheet and shredding defenses on a last-place team usually doesn’t make for a strong argument in the eyes of voters assessing Hart Trophy candidates. 

During the 2022-23 season, then-Sharks defenseman Erik Karlsson posted 101 points for a dreadful San Jose team that went 22-44-16 (60 points). Karlsson was the first NHL blueliner to post 100-plus points in a season since Brian Leetch in 1991-92, and held a 34-point edge over the Sharks’ second-leading scorer in Logan Couture. 

For those efforts, Karlsson took home the Norris Trophy — but only earned three fourth-place votes and five fifth-place votes for the Hart that season.

It stood as a tough break for a superstar talent mired on a rebuilding team, but Pastrnak might be dealt a similar hand during awards season.

In some ways, it’s even more impressive that Pastrnak is putting together this type of season on a team short on high-end talent, especially when compared to his previous 100-point campaigns on a record-setting 2022-23 squad and an overachieving 2023-24 group.

Even if Pastrnak has been on a roll with a reworked line featuring Morgan Geekie and Elias Lindholm, he doesn’t necessarily have the same stacked supporting cast that other Hart contenders like MacKinnon (Cale Makar), Kucherov (Brayden Point, Jake Guentzel) or Draisaitl (Connor McDavid) have benefited from — be it at 5-on-5 play or on the power play.

While Pastrnak first established himself as a potent sniper on the power play, he hasn’t received much of a boost this season on a Bruins man advantage that ranks 29th in the league with a 15.3 success rate. 

But as Lauko said, Boston’s listless offense and sputtering power play hasn’t prevented Pastrnak from shredding defenses night in and night out.

Pastrnak still leads all NHLers in 5-on-5 points with 62 (four over second-place Kucherov), while his 51 primary points (goals and primary assists) also pace the league at 51. 

As noted after Tuesday’s three-point showing against the Devils, Pastrnak now holds a 47-point advantage over Boston’s second-leading scorer in Geekie. The Czech forward also became just the fourth player in NHL history (and first since 1999) to have a hand in 13 consecutive goals for his team, joining the likes of Wayne Gretzky, Mario Lemieux, and Jaromir Jagr. 

Boston’s inability to punch a ticket to the postseason does not fall on Pastrnak’s shoulders. But, it very well could cost him some individual hardware in the coming months. 

But Pastrnak’s on-ice wizardry —and growing leadership role in a dressing room turned upside down — hasn’t been lost on his teammates. 

“Normally he’s like a couple levels above all of us. The last few games, he’s just making us look like Sunday beer leaguers just hanging around,” Lauko said. “He definitely took his game to a different dimension with the way he is playing, especially the last couple of games — it’s been something. 

“You’re just on the bench and you’re looking at him and you just say —  ‘Holy [expletive].’ Some things that he’s doing are crazy. … But even in the locker room, you can tell that he’s got a little bit of a different aura around him. Like when he says something, it has a different weight, you know? So, yeah, he’s definitely a big leader in the locker room and especially on the ice.” 

 

Conor Ryan is a staff writer covering the Bruins, Celtics, Patriots, and Red Sox for Boston.com, a role he has held since 2023.