Are the Bruins right to keep David Pastrnak? (Trending Topics)

On Thursday night the Bruins played the New York Rangers and David Pastrnak was in the lineup. Of course he was.

In the Bruins' previous two games, he'd scored four of the team's seven goals, and put nine shots on net, mostly playing with countryman David Krejci and a resurgent Milan Lucic. The Bruins won those two games, climbed back into a somewhat more comfortable playoff spot (they entered last night three points up on Florida, albeit with three extra games played). During the first intermission, Peter Chiarelli told reporters the Bruins intended to keep Pastrnak for the remainder of the season, and Pastrnak finished the game with just one shot on goal.

Those four goals were nice, and obviously pumping 10 shots is indicative that this kid is playing well right now. He's also an electrifying talent that has ripped up both the AHL and World Junior Championship since this season began (1.13 points per game playing against grown men, and 1.4 per playing against the best U-20 talent on the planet). But what these games definitively do not do at this moment is affirm any belief that he's some sort of key cog that's going to drive the Bruins to the kind of success they expect for the remainder of the NHL season.

First, let's get past the idea that Pastrnak is all of a sudden the reason the Bruins are winning. Before they recalled him on Jan. 8 (a win against New Jersey in which he didn't record a point but had four shots on goal against the Devils' top line and defensive pairing), the Bruins had beaten the Penguins in overtime, earned points in overtime or shootout losses to Carolina, Ottawa, and Toronto, and beaten the Red Wings.

In fact, they entered last night on a run in which they have just two regulation losses since Dec. 13 (9-2-6), collecting 24 of a possible 34 points during that stretch. It's just a coincidence, I'm sure, that Zdeno Chara returned to the lineup on Dec. 11.

Now, that's a lot of overtime losses, absolutely — four of them were in the shootout — but you have to keep in mind that all games that go beyond regulation essentially become coin flips. The Bruins were just as likely to win them as lose, but at least they got some points out of them. By contrast, teams that win a lot of overtime games can expect to fall back to earth, especially if The Process isn't there for them, but for all their apparent problems this year the Bruins are the sixth-best possession team in the league and thus they're probably going to win a lot more games than they lose as a general rule.

Has Pastrnak helped? Absolutely. Should Bruins fans be excited for him? Of course.

But the Bruins faced an interesting decision: When they play him in one more game at the NHL level, they're going to burn a year of his entry level contract. Thus, they could send him down to Providence right now and preserve that year, or they could keep him — which they've already said they will — and, even if they returned him after Game No. 10, he'd still lose that year. It's a question of asset management stretched to its logical extreme.

In general, 18-year-old players are not good enough to play in the NHL. There are exceptions to every rule, of course, and Patrice Bergeron stands as one to which the Bruins can point as a cause célèbre on this front. Is Pastrnak good enough to have that same kind of impact not only in the near term, but over the remaining 37 games of the season? It's tough to say. Corey Pronman tracks prospects for ESPN and, while his latest rankings didn't include Pastrnak because he's currently on an NHL roster, Pastrnak was rated fifth this summer, the last time such rankings were released. How he slipped to the Bruins at No. 25 overall in June's draft remains a bit of a mystery.

And so while it's easy to say, “Look how well the Bruins do with Pastrnak in the lineup,” one has to consider the other circumstances that have led to this recent spate of winning for the Black and Gold.

The most apparent issue, to me, is that the Bruins are finally healthy for the first time basically all year. Zdeno Chara is back and playing at a high level to the point that it's not even really all that fair — how can someone be that old and coming off injury and still be this dominant? — and everyone else on the defense is back to where they need to be as well. David Krejci is finally back and playing at 100 percent as well, which really shores up the hole the Bruins were dealing with in the middle of the ice. It's been that way for a few weeks now, and hey what do you know, the Bruins are back winning. The contest on Jan. 3 was just the third game all year in which they dressed their optimal lineup, and they're 5-0-2 since, outscoring opponents 22-10. Pastrnak accounts for four of those goals.

Further, I'd point out that a lot of this is just a case of the team's PDO normalizing after a dismal stretch in December that caused so many existential crises. Here's the team's 10-game rolling PDO for the entire season (not including last night's game, which brought it up considerably thanks to the Tuukka Rask shutout):

The team's shooting and goaltending was always bound to recover, not just because it was so far below 100, but because the Bruins' PDO as a team usually hovers closer to 101 or 102 because of how good Tuukka Rask is. And Rask, flatly, hasn't been Vezina-level this year (.923 even strength save percentage). That compares unfavorably with other starters in the league, placing him 17th among the 28 goalies who have gotten at least 1,000 minutes of 5-on-5 time this season. And it's right in line with what he's done since this run of success began. That number is also a full 13 points below his career even-strength save percentage not including this season (.936).

The point being that Rask could very easily start to play like himself again, and the Bruins could therefore start to win more games without relying on shooting of the quality Pastrnak has brought in these last two games. In fact, seeing as we're talking about almost ludicrously small sample sizes: since everyone came back healthy, Rask's even-strength save percentage in the last six games is .941, much closer to his career average.

And that doesn't even count the Bruins' work on the penalty kill since this run began, which has improved dramatically, and certainly reflects but obviously does not contribute to their even-strength success (except insofar as they're trailing less as a result of giving up fewer goals on the PK). In this streak, and not counting last night, they've allowed the sixth-fewest shots per 60 minutes of shorthanded time, and the ninth-fewest goals. In the 30 games previous, they ranked 21st in goals against per 60, and 13th in shots against. This is a major turnaround, and a lot of it can likely be attributed to improving health. The save percentage in these two different periods has improved from .853, among the dregs of the league, to .879, which is middle of the pack.

Speaking of which, people in Boston (Chiarelli included, apparently) are indeed going gaga over just three games since he got called up — and really, just the two in which he scored twice. Is there any chance at all that is, maybe, possibly, just the result of this kid combining his great hands and speed with stellar luck?

Well, only nine other rookies since the salary cap — I think; Hockey Reference is wonky with rookies sometimes, and actually didn't include Gaudreau in the list below — went into effect have done it:

• David Pastrnak (Jan. 10 and 13, 2015)

• Johnny Gaudreau (Dec. 22 and 27, 2014)

• Nathan MacKinnon (Jan. 4 and 6, 2014)

• Nail Yakupov (April 26 and 27, 2013)

• Tomas Hertl (Oct. 5 and 8, 2013)

• Cam Atkinson (April 5 and 7, 2012)

• John Tavares (Dec. 8 and 9, 2009)

• Matt Duchene (Nov. 30 and Dec. 2, 2009)

• T.J. Hensick (Feb. 2 and 4, 2008)

• Alex Ovechkin (both Nov. 6 and 8, 2005, and Jan. 13 and 16, 2006)

With the exception of Hensick those are some really good players, basically All-Stars or close to it if you also exclude Atkinson. And certainly that doesn't mean Pastrnak is going to amount to what those other guys have accomplished, but it gives you a decent idea of what his skill threshold might be.

But with that having been said, people sure are paying a lot of attention to these two recent games, and not, say, the six he played previous to them in which he did not score (though he did rack up 18 shots and one assist). And as to the argument that he helps them win: They went 2-4 in those. Further, one has to assess that the last three teams the Bruins played prior to last night were titans like New Jersey and Philadelphia, in addition to high-flying Tampa, not exactly the brass of the Eastern Conference.

You also have to imagine that because Pastrnak is an 18-year-old rookie of slight build, the game isn't always going to come to him as easily as it has so far. So if you're so convinced that this kid alone is the linchpin upon which the future success of the team is dependent, there are three things to consider: 1) What happens when he doesn't score two goals a game? 2) What does that say about your team as a whole? 3) What happens in the playoffs?

Not to say that it's his fault or the Bruins' that he's a good player and he's contributing positively to their success right now, but NHL teams tend to view the playoffs in a far more cutthroat fashion. Many is the time the Bruins and several other teams have seen fit to scratch their rookies — whether 18, 19, 20, or sometimes older — in favor of more experienced veterans. Pastrnak might be such a casualty as well, which further calls into question whether these final 37 games are worth burning that contract.

The argument in favor of keeping him is that they might not make the playoffs without him, and that would probably lead to a massive overhaul of the roster (not that this would necessarily be the worst thing in franchise history). Further, getting him on the team now, and next year, and the year after that, probably plays him right through to the end of Zdeno Chara's usefulness — and thus the Bruins' real-life window in which they could pull down another Stanley Cup — and at that point you can probably pay him whatever he's worth without feeling too bad about it anyhow, especially because you-know-who in the No. 17 sweater is a UFA after next season and selling him while he still has value might not be a terrible idea. Maybe they can even convince Dennis Seidenberg to retire. Regardless, it's difficult to imagine the Bruins roster of today will bear much more than a passing resemblance to the current one; at this point only seven players are signed beyond next season (though obviously Dougie Hamilton will be extended as long as possible on July 1).

Further, the argument might be that this is what he needs for his development, and that's a reasonable argument. He clearly has very little to prove against AHLers at this point, and he's being used in a key role in the NHL (for now). But if or when things get bumpy, and he perhaps gets demoted to, say, the third line or the press box for a few games, how much does that help? What about that playoff situation where the team feels it needs leadership or grit or experience that Pastrnak doesn't provide? Further, would the extra 30-something games in the AHL really hold him back that much?

Earlier this year I wrote that unless you're dealing with an exceptional talent and a team that can legitimately compete for the Stanley Cup, you'd be a fool to waste a year of an 18-year-old's rookie contract. There's almost no reason to do it from an asset management point of view. Basically none at all, unless you want to sell a bunch of tickets or something.

But the Bruins and Pastrnak are the closest examples of those two circumstances you're likely to see. The numbers, but not the standings, indicate this is still a team capable of being elite in this league, even after taking all the hits and demoralizing lows that come with a pile of injuries and a run of bad bounces. I'm not sure Pastrnak pushes them over the top into “elite” because they're close if not there without him for the vast majority of the season, so long as they get the goaltending they've not received to this point. And this seems like a decision predicated entirely on a high shooting percentage over what is essentially a two-game sample; even if you spread it out over these four most recent ones, he's shooting 40 percent.

Not that any of this matters, because there was never any way they were going to do something besides keep him up. Playing him with Krejci and Lucic all but rendered the announcement last night pointless, because it's not really a matter of if or whether they should keep him. He got those goals, the Bruins are on a four-game winning streak, and there ya go. They're just going to do it, future cap consequences be damned.

But where have we heard that before? Hmmm...

Ryan Lambert is a Puck Daddy columnist. His email is here and his Twitter is here.

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