4. Pastrnak and Cassidy take home awards.
David Pastrnak became one of the gifted scorers in the NHL last season and was the first Bruin to win the Maurice Rocket Richard Award, sharing the honors with Alex Ovechkin of the Washington Capitals. Both players each tallied 48 goals and it would be have been a fun last 12 games of the regular season to see who would have brought home the award if the league was not forced to shut down.
Pasta was two goals shy of becoming the first member of the Bruins to score 50 goals in a season since current team President Cam Neely did it during the 1993-94 season.
Over the last four years, Pastrnak has seen his goal total rise each season. Besides setting a career-high with his 48 goals in 2019-20, he also set a career-high in assists with 47 and points with 95.
Cassidy was a finalist for the Jack Adams Award as the league’s top coach with Alain Vigneault of the Philadelphia Flyers and John Tortorella of the Columbus Blue Jackets.
Cassidy ended up winning the award and it’s hard to argue that he was not deserving of it. Yeah, the Bruins won the Presidents’ Trophy as the only team in the shortened regular season to get 100 points, but it was not an easy path to getting to the century mark.
Cassidy and the Bruins dealt with a lack of secondary scoring, injuries to their defensive unit, and injuries to No. 1 goalie Tuukka Rask. Despite all of that, Cassidy was able to plug holes and the Bruins were able to stay ahead of the rest of the league because of their second-ranked power play unit and their third-ranked penalty killing.