BOSTON — The Boston Bruins are reportedly shopping breakout star David Pastrnak in hopes of landing a package in return featuring players who are significantly worse than the 20 year-old right wing.
Pastrnak is averaging nearly a point a game and trails only Sidney Crosby in goals in just his first full-year in the NHL, prompting Boston’s desire to deal him.
“He’s obviously is a very in-demand player right now and maybe his stock is never higher,” said a Bruins front office source. “We don’t want to look back and say that we missed our opportunity. And if we trade him now, we could really bring in a lot of depth guys for our third and fourth lines and maybe also bolster our roster in the AHL. That’s the mark of a good franchise: strong organizational depth, not elite talent.”
Dealing Pastrnak would indeed fit in with the franchise’s philosophy of trading away star players when they’re young, as the Bruins did with Joe Thornton, Phil Kessel and Tyler Seguin. The source also said there is some internal concern that “Pastrnak is scoring too much. Hockey is the ultimate team sport and yet he is personally getting a lot of goals. What if that causes locker room problems?”
While not everyone in the Bruins front office is on board with trading Pastrnak, most are resigned to the inevitability.
“I think you keep top talent, not give it away,” said one team scout. “That said, I sometimes think about how we could have had David and Tyler Seguin on the same team and I get very sad. Maybe it’s best we just get rid of all our top players and I’ll stop having those kind of thoughts.”
