Hey Bruins, Cut The Shit And Pay Pasta
Don Sweeney and company, I implore you: don’t fuck this up. Not for my benefit but for yours. The Bruins have slowly slid down the totem pole of relevance in this town since they coughed up Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Final in 2013. If your lowballing ways somehow drive yet another young, budding star to a new address, then you might as well name the Revolution as your new rival. Because that’s who you’ll be competing for eyeballs with.
Thanks to old pal Peter Chiarelli, the market for young stud restricted free agents forwards went sky-high. The former Bs GM, who put the Bs in cap jail with a series of overpayments and No Trade clauses, gave 21-year-old Leon Draisaitl an 8 year/$68M deal ($8.5M AAV) whose ripple effect will also make David Pastrnak a very rich young man. That’s how the market works (I’m not crazy about paying big bucks for potential based on a small sample size but that’s what the cap has wrought).
But the Bs front office is apparently taking its cues from Harry Sinden circa 1990 by offering Pastrnak $6M a year per numerous reports. That’s simply not gonna get it done. If they can pay Matt Beleskey $3.8M, David Krejci $7.25M, and 33-year-old David Backes $6M annually, then surely they can give Pasta more than $6M. He’s the caliber of player they’ve lacked since they gave Tyler Seguin away four years ago.
After a blah second season, the RW broke through with a monster 2016-17, putting up 34-36–70 totals in 75 games. He’s a dynamic player on track to be a perennial All-Star and he actually wants to be here. So maybe don’t lowball him and risk alienating him. Especially when you have the cap room.
The tone coming from both camps has been civil and a deal does feel inevitable—each wants the other. But the Bs are simply going to need to come up from $6M/year. Certainly not the $8.5M that Pete threw Draisaitl’s way but closer to the middle.
They should give him 7 years/$49M or if he’ll go 8, then 8/$56M. But just do it now and get it the fuck over with. Training Camp starts a week from today and the last thing the Bruins need is the distraction of yet another young holdout in the team’s history because it doesn’t want to give a player of Pastrnak’s quality market value. Not only would it be a shitty way to kick off the year, it would be yet another PR hit the Black and Gold don’t need or can afford.
Sweeney—get it done.