After the Boston Bruins lost to the Colorado Avalanche, 4-1, on Saturday night, first-year coach Marco Sturm was rather blunt about his team's performance.
"My grinders were the best players again,'' said Sturm on the NESN broadcast. "And if your grinders are the best players and not my best players, (we're) going to be in trouble."
David Pastrnak didn’t play down the stretch against the Avs. The Bruins' leader was benched by Sturm, which clearly was sending him a message. Why not? Pastrnak made some mistakes, including a brutal center ice turnover that led to Nathan MacKinnon scoring the tying goal in the first period.
That came shortly after John Beecher, making his season debut, opened the scoring early in the first period. Pastrnak would make some questionable decisions with the puck before finding a seat on the bench.
Boston finished with just 14 shots on the net in the game, which is not going to allow you to leave Colorado with any points in these standings. Boston had a quick turnaround playing the Utah Mammoth Sunday night to lose out on the road trip. Pastrnak responded following his benching.
David Pastrnak scores two goals in Bruins loss to Mammoth
One night after not recording a shot on the net, Pastrnak scored two goals and finished with five shots on the net in a 3-2 loss to the Mammoth. He scored a power-play goal and an even-strength goal.
Pastrnak responded, but a defensive turnover from Marat Khusnutdinov led to a game-winning Utah goal. The Bruins' margin for error this year is small, and they need Pastrnak to impact the game every night. He did Sunday, but it wasn’t enough to collect any points.
The problem is, the Bruins didn’t get anything else from anyone else. Boston needs to find some help for Pastrnak from some of their other top players on a night like Sunday.
Message sent, message received by Boston’s best player. Now the others need to respond.