Boston Bruins: David Pastrnak must surely win the Hart Trophy

Another night and another hat-trick for Boston Bruins winger David Pastrnak. Surely, he has to be a favorite for the Hart Trophy at season’s end.

Not only is this his third hat-trick of the campaign so far, but it was also the continuation of a 12-game point streak that has seen David Pastrnak stretch out a 4 goal lead over his nearest rival (Auston Matthews) in the scoring race and ensure the Boston Bruins hang onto their top spot in the Atlantic, for now.

If you took David Pastrnak’s goal-scoring away from the Boston Bruins, they go from 151 goals to 116. Only the bottom dwelling Detroit Red Wings, Anaheim Ducks and New Jersey Devils have less goals this season. In fact, the whole Detroit team combined only has 61 more goals than him!

However, it’s not necessarily the fact that he’s scoring goals like they’re going out of fashion, it’s more the fact that his goals make up 23.1% of the Boston Bruins’ goals overall.

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Not only is he contributing with goal-scoring though, he’s also getting it done with helpers. 30 assists, on top of his goals puts him on 65 points for the year; only five points back from points leader, Connor McDavid.

Do you give out the Hart Trophy based on McDavid possibly only just edging the Edmonton Oilers into the play-off picture? Or do you give it to David Pastrnak for taking a Boston Bruins side that has looked quite frankly, very average at times, on his back and ensured it holds a grasp on top spot in the Atlantic, at least for the season so far?

You can make a strong argument that his totals are propped up by power-play scoring and yes, 27 of his points have come on the man-advantage, but that’s hardly his fault. What we have seen is a player develop a trademark shot from a trademark spot akin to Alex Ovechkin.

Somehow no team in the league seems to have been able to solve how to block the inevitable David Pastrnak power-play shot from the point!

The great thing for Boston Bruins fans is that while David Pastrnak is currently rocking a shooting percentage above what he’s managed in previous years, 19.7% doesn’t actually seem wholly unsustainable.

His 6 game-winning goals, his 35 overall goals, his 65 points, his 27 power play points – all best on the entire Boston Bruins team. In fact the only tally that he is running behind in is his assists, with Brad Marchand eclipsing him with 42 to his 30.

If these aren’t valid reasons to see him as a very very strong Hart Trophy contender, I don’t know what is. Not forgetting that he is also the leader in terms of hat-tricks this year, with 3 and counting!

This season, if it weren’t for David Pastrnak managing to continually find the net, there’s absolutely zero chance that the Boston Bruins are sitting top of the Atlantic in January.

Should we continue to find ways to win courtesy of him, I think the Hart Trophy is all but guaranteed to find a place in his personal trophy collection.

Statistics courtesy of nhl.com/stats.