Kalman: Another Year Playing For Julien Should Pay Off For Pastrnak
BOSTON (CBS) - Down the road, we might look back at the non-displaced foot fracture that cost Bruins forward David Pastrnak 21 games this season as a positive.
Pastrnak already thinks he benefited from the time off the ice.
"Absolutely. That was a really great six weeks for me," the 19-year-old forward said days after the Bruins' season ended. "I got so much stronger. I got a couple pounds up, which helped me so much. I got faster, I felt so much better after I came back from the injury. And that's another experience for me. I worked with [strength and conditioning coach John Whitesides]. I got to know more stuff about working out and stuff, blah, blah, blah.
"I think that injury was meant to be because if it hadn't happened I wouldn't have worked with Whitey for seven weeks and wouldn't be probably where I am right now."
The Bruins went 14-7-3 without Pastrnak, who also missed three games with an upper-body injury and spent time with Providence in AHL and with the Czech Republic team at the World Junior Championship. You can't say Pastrnak's injury cost the Bruins some of the points they needed to avoid a second straight playoffs-less spring, but had he been healthy and building up confidence and experience in his second NHL season he might've been able to save the day down the stretch when Boston was folding up. As it was he did what he could with the first goal in both the win against Detroit in Game 81 and the loss to Ottawa in Game 82.
Pastrnak finished with 15 goals in 51 games – five more goals in five more games played than in his rookie season. With the Bruins' lines in a blender on a game-to-game basis, he never had time to develop a lot of chemistry with linemates but at times looked great with some combination of David Krejci, Matt Beleskey and Loui Eriksson. Pastrnak struggled at times with decision-making and with winning battles, but he continued to show the type of relentless work ethic, on the backcheck and the forecheck, that will pay off in improvements down the line.
To the chagrin of some he totaled 23:52 of ice time on the power play. Of course, the Bruins' power play led the League in efficiency for much of the regular season and finished ranked seventh. Most nights the top unit of Torey Krug, Patrice Bergeron, Ryan Spooner, Krejci and Eriksson either scored before the second unit could get on the ice or dominated the ice time. Would the extra 30 seconds of power play time here or there helped his development or been a difference-maker for the Bruins? Probably not.
Beyond the power play, there were other times Pastrnak was pinned to the bench. Coach Claude Julien regularly sat the teenager in tight games for defensive purposes. As part of his explanation for retaining Julien's services beyond this season, general manager Don Sweeney used Julien's handling of Pastrnak as an example of positive development of young players.
"Again the impatience, as I've said before, about putting players in there before they're ready, it shows up at times. It absolutely does," Sweeney said. "At the time we're talking about David Pastrnak, who leads the league in giveaways per 60 minutes. He's a tremendous talent, a tremendous young man. He's got great character. He needs to get better and he wants to get stronger. And at times it's unfair for Claude that people are like 'ah, there's Pastrnak not out on the ice again in this situation.' And he's the same guy that put him out in the situation at 5-1, he makes a bad mistake [against the Red Wings] and they score and then he starts in Ottawa and gets us going. So that's a give and take that I think everybody has to understand with our younger players. You have to hope that they're ready for that.
"When we've done it properly ... [Brad Marchand] started on the fourth line and worked his way up. David [Krejci] went up and down a little bit. That's the piece that we need to make sure we have the depth. And we're in a transition to get there."
This is what makes Julien a strong developer of young talent, as opposed to the hater of young players he's been made out to be by those who profit from panic. Beyond Marchand and Krejci, Julien also handled the development of Milan Lucic from the time he was a teenager. Whatever you want to say about Tyler Seguin, he was a 29-goal scorer worthy of playing as a top-six right wing on a line that always got difficult matchups as a 20-year-old. Then he dropped off offensively during the 48-game lockout-shortened season but still averaged 17:01 of ice time. We all remember how tough love in the playoffs paid off for Phil Kessel.
There are 55 minutes in the game for gaining experience, so if there are five minutes at the end where the coach wants to make sure he has his most trusty-worthy players on the ice to protect a win, he's entitled. And those few shifts missed as a 19-year-old aren't going to shape who any play, let alone Pastrnak, is going to be in his mid-20s. It's all a process and often it's better to put younger players in situations where their odds of succeeding are greater. It rarely pays off to let young pitchers get shelled and it makes no sense to leave a teenaged forward on the ice for crucial goals against in the closing minutes of games.
As a third-year NHLer in 2016-17, Pastrnak, like so many before him, will probably earn more ice time in crunch time from Julien.
Matt Kalman covers the Bruins for CBSBoston.com and also contributes to NHL.com and several other media outlets. Follow him on Twitter @TheBruinsBlog.