Good-bad news released on David Pastrnak's contract status

Boston Bruins forward David Pastrnak is in the midst of the final year of the six-year, $40 million deal that he inked with the Bruins in 2017. Since then, he's enjoyed two seasons of scoring 40+ goals, and reached the 500 point plateau during 2021-22. And right now, he's on pace to shatter that mark, having already scored 38 goals in just 51 games played.

Needless to say, he's one of their most important players, and will be looked upon by the franchise to continue carrying a hefty portion of the offensive load, especially given the fact that this upcoming season could be the final NHL campaigns for popular but aging forwards Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci (who was lured back to Boston with a one year contract after spending last season overseas). 

The latest news is a bit of a good news-bad news variety. According to Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet, the two sides are “moving towards getting done”, along with Emily Kaplan of ESPN stating that a contract is “tracking to get done this season, after some progress the last few weeks.”

But the bad news is that it could end up being an overpayment that the Bruins could live to regret.

“I think when this is over, we will find out that David Pastrnak pushed the Boston Bruins in a position they didn’t think they would get to and didn’t want to be in,” Friedman said. “What’s the biggest weapon you have in a negotiation? It’s the willingness to say no. I think David Pastrnak had a willingness to say, ‘Look, if you guys aren’t going to do this, it’s gonna be a problem.’ And I think he pushed the Bruins into an area that maybe they didn’t want to go in. I think it’s gonna get done because I think they recognized it has to get done. That’s my opinion.”

Bruins fans, are you willing to accept an overpayment to keep Pasta in Boston?