Facing a Pittsburgh team fighting for its playoff life, and with Patrice Bergeron getting the weekend off, the Bruins ripped the Penguins’ hearts out Saturday afternoon, with David Pastrnak doing most of the damage in a 4-3 victory.
Pastrnak scored his 54th, 55th and 56th goals of the season, including the game-winner with 2:26 left in regulation. He continued to climb the ranks of the Bruins’ record book in the process.
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For starters, Pastrnak passed Cam Neely’s 55 goals in 1989-90 for the most goals in a season by a Bruin in the last 45 years. Now only Phil Esposito has ever scored more goals in a Bruins season than Pastrnak this year. Espo topped 60 goals four times in a five-year span from 1970-75. While his single-season record of 76 in 1970-71 remains safe, he may soon have company in the 60-goal club if Pastrnak can score four more in the final six games of the regular season.
Esposito is also now the only Bruin who has scored more hat tricks with the Bruins than Pastrnak, who tied Neely for the second-most in franchise history with the 14th of his career. Esposito’s club record of 26 is safe for a while, but check back at the end of Pastrnak’s upcoming eight-year contract.
Pastrnak’s first goal of the day, a power-play tally that came on a redirect of a Dmitry Orlov point shot, gave him 100 points for the first time in his career. By the end of the day he had 102, which is the most by a Bruin since Adam Oates had 112 in 1993-94. The only other Bruins who have topped 100 since then were Joe Thornton (101 in 2002-03) and Brad Marchand (100 in 2018-19).
On Saturday, every time the Penguins tied the game, it was Pastrnak who put the Bruins back in the lead. The aforementioned power-play goal made it 2-1. A rocket just under the crossbar 7:07 into the third made it 3-2. And then came the winner, a patented one-timer from the slot off a feed from David Krejci.
The win also added to the record books. The Bruins now have a franchise-record 123 points on the season, topping the previous record of 121 set by the 1970-71 team. And with 59 wins, Jim Montgomery now has the most wins ever by a coach in his first season with a team.
Anyways, watch all three of Pastrnak’s goals below:
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