When forward David Pastrnak of the Boston Bruins found the back of the net for the 25th time this season he became the first NHL player to reach 25 goals by December 1st since Mario Lemieux achieved the feat in 1992/93. Pastrnak also became just one of 11 NHL’ers to mange it and his 25 goals in 27 contests represents the quickest goalscoring start in the league since Jaromir Jagr in 1996/97.
The next accomplishment in sight for the 23-year-old native of the Czech Republic is to score 50 goals in his team’s first 50 games. The last player to reach those numbers was Brett Hull, who achieved it for the second consecutive time in his career in 1991/92. The only other players to hit 50 goals in their first 50 or fewer games of a season have been Lemieux (twice), Maurice Richard, Mike Bossy, Wayne Gretzky (three times), Cam Neely and Alexander Mogilny.
Pastrnak, who was drafted by Boston with the 25th overall pick in 2014, has scored at a rate of 0.93 goals-per-game so far this season and is on pace to reach 76 in the 82-game schedule. And with 15 assists in his first 27 games he has 42 points and is on pace for 121 points this year. The winger has notched five game winners and 12 of his goals have come on the power-play while his shooting percentage has been a very impressive 23.1 per-cent.
However, just eight players have managed to score at least 70 goals in an NHL season and these are Lemieux, Gretzky, Hull, Mogilny, Jari Kurri, Phil Esposito, Bernie Nichols and Teemu Selanne.
It’s highly unlikely Pastrnak will be able to keep up the scoring pace over the entire season but sports has always been about beating the odds. The Bruins play their 50th game of the season in Pittsburgh against the Penguins on January 19th so fans will have to wait about another six weeks to see if Pastrnak can reach the magical number of 50 goals by then.
Pastrnak scored his 20th goal in his 22nd game this season while Esposito reached the mark in 18 games, and Neely, who both played for Boston, did it in 19 games. Another Bruin, Herb Cain, scored 20 goals for the club in 20 games. For Pastrnak to score 70 times this season he needs to turn the goal light on another 45 times in the next 53 games and of course would need to remain healthy the rest of the way. Up until now, he’s played the full 82-game schedule just once in his NHL career.
Scoring 70 goals isn’t out of the question though since on paper the Bruins have one of the league’s easier schedules from now until April. A total of 27 of their 53 remaining contests are against teams that are currently in non-playoff positions. But this includes squads that very well could make the playoffs by the end of the season sch as the Vegas Golden Knights, Toronto Maple Leafs, Tampa Bay Lightning and Nashville Predators.
But even if Pastrnak doesn’t score 70 goals this season he’s definitely on track at the moment to lead the league in goals and win the Rocket Richard Trophy for doing so. As of December 2nd, Alexander Ovechkin of the Washington Capitals was second on the scoring parade with 20 goals in 28 games while Connor McDavid of the Edmonton Oilers had 19 in 29. Leon Draisaitl of Edmonton had 18 in 29 and Pastrnak’s linemate Brad Marchand was ranked fifth with 18 goals in 27 games and even had a better shooting percentage than Pastrnak by scoring on 27.3 per cent of his shots.