This is the 2022-23 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
David Pastrnak
Boston Bruins Right Wing
Forty goals off 13.97 shots per 60 — the highest rate in the league — with a 100.2 mph release and only 30 per cent of it from the slot.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2014-15 | BOS | 46 | 10 | 17 | 27 | +12 | 8 | 2 | 0 | 3 | 93 | 10.8 | 13:58 |
| 2015-16 | BOS | 51 | 15 | 11 | 26 | +3 | 20 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 108 | 13.9 | 13:57 |
| 2016-17 | BOS | 75 | 34 | 36 | 70 | +11 | 34 | 10 | 0 | 6 | 262 | 13.0 | 17:59 |
| 2017-18 | BOS | 82 | 35 | 45 | 80 | +10 | 37 | 13 | 0 | 5 | 246 | 14.2 | 17:58 |
| 2018-19 | BOS | 66 | 38 | 43 | 81 | +6 | 32 | 17 | 0 | 4 | 235 | 16.2 | 18:45 |
| 2019-20 | BOS | 70 | 48 | 47 | 95 | +21 | 40 | 20 | 0 | 10 | 279 | 17.2 | 18:58 |
| 2020-21 | BOS | 48 | 20 | 28 | 48 | +10 | 24 | 6 | 0 | 3 | 176 | 11.4 | 18:37 |
| 2021-22 | BOS | 72 | 40 | 37 | 77 | +13 | 20 | 15 | 0 | 9 | 312 | 12.8 | 18:36 |
| 2022-23 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 510 | 240 | 264 | 504 | +86 | 215 | 83 | 0 | 42 | 1711 | 14.0 | 17:36 |
This Season So Far
The 2022-23 season has not started. The empty row above is his, and both it and this paragraph fill in on their own from the morning after he first plays: what he has done, what it is worth against his own last season, and the run he is on when the two disagree.
Last Season
40 goals and 37 assists in 72 games — 77 points at 18:36 a night, plus-13, with 15 power-play goals and 9 game-winners on 312 shots and 20 penalty minutes.
13.97 shots per 60 is the 100th percentile among the league’s forwards — the highest rate in hockey. Three hundred and twelve attempts in 72 games.
58.8 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 1,010 minutes, the 97th percentile. His ice went 61-39 against an expectation of 47.89-33.59: thirteen goals of scoring above what the chances predicted, which is what a line with three finishers on it produces, and five more conceded than they did.
The Finesse Game
The shot leaves at 100.2 mph, the 99th percentile of velocity, and it is taken from a median of 34 feet — the 97th percentile for distance. Only 30 per cent of his attempts came from inside the slot, the 2nd percentile among forwards.
That is the whole player and it is not what a forty-goal scorer usually looks like. He is not going to the front of the net; he is arriving at the top of the circle and shooting through traffic hard enough that it does not matter. Twelve and a half per cent of them went in.
15 power-play goals off 3:33 a night of it, the 95th percentile. The one-timer from the left circle is a set play the whole league knows about and cannot stop.
2.83 even-strength points per 60 is the 91st percentile and 264 assists in 510 games, so the passing is real too. 3.45 giveaways per 60 is the price — among the highest figures for a forward in the league, and the same instinct that holds the puck for the extra second.
The Physical Game
6-0 and 199, and there is almost nothing here. 0.63 blocks per 60 is the 3rd percentile among forwards and 2.82 hits the 33rd. He is not part of how Boston defends and has never been asked to be.
Top speed 23.1 mph at the 86th percentile and 9.68 miles per sixty at the 52nd. He gets to speed quickly and does not cover unusual ground, which fits a winger whose job is to be in one specific place when the puck arrives.
The Intangibles
Twenty-fifth overall in 2014, 510 games, 240 goals and 504 points by twenty-six.
He is 26, in the final year of his contract, and every conversation about Boston this season will come back to it. A forty-goal right winger entering unrestricted free agency at twenty-seven is the most valuable commodity in hockey, and the club he plays for is one whose two best forwards are 34 and 37 and have both had a summer of doubt. What Boston does about that is the season.
What kind of player
The searchable half of the report. The first group is computed from the season's own data; the rest are read out of the prose above, and each one carries the sentence that produced it. A subject the report never raised is simply absent.
- measuredcomputed here from the season's own data
- a strengthread out of the prose, and claimed
Each computed tag also says how well its measure holds up from one season to the next, because a tag describes a season that has finished and a reader will assume it predicts the one coming. Some do and some do not, and the gap is wide: five-on-five workload repeats well, scoring late does not repeat at all.
- perimeter· shoots from the outside, by choice or because he cannot get in
35.9% of his attempts from 40 feet or beyond, 98th percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.66) · 50% keep it
- sheltered· is started in the attacking end
67% of his end-zone starts in the attacking end, 98th percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.66) · 47% keep it
“2.83 even-strength points per 60 is the 91st percentile and 264 assists in 510 games”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2021-22 · 1,010 minutes
- Expected goals
- 58.8%
- 97th pct
- Shot attempts
- 58.1%
- 97th pct
share of the chances while he was out there
share of the attempts while he was out there
Goals while he was on the ice: 61 for, 39 against. Expected: 47.9 and 33.6.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe two rank him within 13 points of one another. It was written for a back edition, with the seasons that followed already known. Neither the agreement nor the gap says anything about the eye, and this report is excluded from the club-level comparison for the same reason.
Both bars are percentiles among the 649 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 69 on their own scale — against every other report's mean. The numbers bar ranks his share of expected goals. A gap is a disagreement about where he belongs, not two scales talking past each other.
Tracked
NHL Edge, 2021-22 · 72 games
- Top speed
- 23.1 mph
- 91st pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 1.61 a game
- Distance
- 3.00 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 100.2 mph
- 99th pct
fastest he was clocked all season; the league's average best is 22.0
how often he reaches that speed, not how fast he goes
skated, all strengths
one shot; the league's average best is 84.1
A top speed is a season's best, and a man who takes more shifts gets more tries at one; the percentile is the feed's own, against every skater, and says less between a top-pair defenceman and a fourth-line wing than it does between two men in the same job. The counts are shown per game for the same reason.
Usual linemates
2021-22 · 1010 minutes at five-on-five
- Taylor Hall62%
Share of his five-on-five ice time spent alongside each player, measured from shift charts. Special teams are excluded: a power-play unit is not a line.
Why the numbers land there
Five-on-five, 2021-22
- The club
- BOS took 56.2% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 58.8% — 2.6 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- Second line, 1,010 minutes at five-on-five — 62nd percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Taylor Hall | 58.6% | 59.1% | 54.8% |
| Erik Haula | 56.2% | 60.9% | 51.1% |
| Charlie McAvoy | 63.7% | 54.9% | 60.0% |
58.6% together, 59.1% for him apart and 54.8% for Hall apart. Hall was worse away from him while his own share held — the pairing was doing more for Hall than for him.
Expected-goal share while both were on the ice, and for each man in the minutes he played without the other. Apart is the pair subtracted from his own totals. It does not settle who was carrying whom — apart from each other, both were still playing with somebody — but it does say whether the share travelled when the pairing broke up.
Where he shoots from
goal on goal missed
432 unblocked shots in 2021-22, 41 of them goals. His median goal came from 22 feet. 21% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 36% from beyond forty.