Pucks with Haggs host Joe Haggerty discusses a rough Bruins road trip during a mailbag episode of the show and then discusses how the pickup of former Islanders first round pick and Maine native Oliver Wahlstrom on waivers could help Boston.
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SportsTranscript
00:00Pucks with Hags is brought to you by Price Picks and the Game Time app.
00:04Welcome to another edition of the Pucks with Hags podcast powered by Price Picks,
00:08the exclusive daily fantasy partner of the CLNS Media Network. I believe this is the 149th
00:13episode of the Pucks with Hags podcast. Thank you very much for listening. As always,
00:18we appreciate your listenership, your participation, and on days like today,
00:23your questions and you being able to interact with the show and ask me some questions that I
00:28will answer in another mailbag episode of the Pucks with Hags podcast. That's what you have
00:35in store today. Let's thank our sponsors, though, real quick before we get into the
00:39Pucks with Hags podcast. And we're going to get into Oliver Wallstrom picked up on
00:45waivers by the Boston Bruins from the New York Islanders on Saturday. And I should introduce
00:50myself. I'm your host, Joe Hagerty. You can find my work at joehagerty.substack.com. Subscribe
00:55and get yourself a premium membership. You can get all of my Bruins and NHL writing sent straight
00:59directly to your inbox. I also write columns three times a week for the Boston Sports Journal. There
01:04will certainly be one up on Sunday morning about the Bruins game against the Canucks and the
01:09Wallstrom pickup. You may remember him as a kid from Maine that won the mini one-on-one.
01:15Must have been about like almost 15 years ago now. Pretty good stuff there. But we will get
01:20to that in a minute. Let's thank Prize Picks first, though. Our friends at Prize Picks,
01:24download the Prize Picks app today and use the code CLNS and get $50 instantly when you play
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02:00and use the code CLNS for $20 off your first purchase. What time is it? Game time. That's
02:08right. All right. Let's get into it. Let's set first of all with where the Bruins are.
02:16They're 0-2 on their West Coast swing. They got absolutely smoked in Winnipeg, a horrible game,
02:23five unanswered goals in the third period. They basically collapsed without much opposition in
02:29the third period aside from a couple of fights. They lost 5-1 in their last game against the
02:36Seattle Kraken, a team that's not in the playoff structure. Once again, they gave up three goals
02:43in the third period. It was a 2-1 game. They got a third goal, Seattle did, on a good bounce for
02:49them, a fortunate bounce. It really looked like at that point, once the Bruins were down 3-1 in
02:54the third period, they set up camp and decided that that was it. This one was not going to be
03:00winnable either. They ended up giving up three unanswered goals in the third period, lose 5-1.
03:05Some of that I really don't like to see, obviously. The third period thing,
03:11they're now minus 15 for the season in the third period. They're one of the worst NHL teams in the
03:17third period, which is usually synonymous with being a bad team and not being in the playoffs
03:21if you're that poor in the third period. So some concern there with the way they finish games,
03:28that they don't have enough legs, that they can't keep pace with other teams,
03:31that they sometimes, if there are a few goals behind and maybe they don't feel like they have
03:36the offensive firepower to catch up, they kind of give up a little bit. They crack and break a
03:41little bit and really start giving up goals, which is not great to see either. That's a bad
03:46sign for a team that is not a good character trait or identity trait for a team at all.
03:54There is an element of character and leadership in all of that stuff and not allowing that to
04:06happen. That's a reflection sometimes and some people want to paint it as a reflection of the
04:12talent level and I don't think that's the case. At a certain point, you just refuse to budge and
04:18refuse to crack and you're going to keep a game exactly where it is and you're not going to all
04:22of a sudden lose your coverage, lose where you're positioning, lose your philosophy,
04:27lose your composure and poise, lose all the things that allow you to really compete and
04:33keep things close. You don't lose that stuff unless there's an element of allowing that to
04:41happen from a leadership, from a mental toughness perspective, from a makeup character perspective,
04:46all that stuff. So I think that's something they need to tighten up and that's working on
04:51themselves and looking in the mirror as much as it's working on anything X's and O's on the
04:56practice ice. They're also struggling to score goals again on this road trip. They are struggling
05:03against good teams. It just has not been good. They still have three games to go. I am going
05:11to reserve judgment and I think I said this in the last podcast. I'm really going to reserve judgment
05:16on this team and what exactly they are until Christmas. I think they're a playoff team.
05:23Unless they completely nose dive, spiral out of control, collapse in the second half of the season,
05:29which I don't really see happening, I still think they're a playoff team. But it feels to me they're
05:34more like a wildcard playoff team and they're more like a team that's going to be out pretty quickly
05:38in the playoffs as constituted right now. Nothing I saw in Seattle made me change my
05:45mind in any way, shape, or form as far as that stuff goes. We'll continue to watch and assess
05:51what's going on. Knowing that the Bruins had a lot to prove on this road trip, knowing that
05:57this West Coast swing was going to be pretty important for them, and then seeing the way that
06:01they played in the first two games. Not only that, they lose 8-1. They get embarrassed in Winnipeg.
06:09You expect them to really straighten up in the second game against Seattle.
06:18Bruins teams of the past, Bruins teams of recent vintage, if they got blown out,
06:26if they got embarrassed by a team, you knew you were going to get their best the next time out.
06:30You knew they were going to be good. You knew they were going to be on point. You were going
06:34to get a good effort. You were going to see them doing the right things right out of the shoot.
06:39You were going to see a lot of positive response and bounce back from the group and from the team.
06:47In that game against Seattle, you saw David Postranek take an offensive zone high sticking
06:53penalty, a careless penalty, and it was 20 seconds into the game. It was the first shift of the game.
06:59It wasn't even a minute into the game. It was totally unnecessary. It was multiple attempts
07:06with the stick to just use stick work instead of actually either getting the body in or really
07:11getting good position or moving your feet or any of that stuff. It gets a double minor out of it,
07:18and then Tyler Johnson takes a penalty right after Seattle scores on one of the power plays,
07:25and then they kill off the other one. Then Tyler Johnson takes a tripping penalty right after that,
07:30and they go right back on the penalty kill. They basically were on the PK for the first
07:34six minutes of the game. That's a horrendous way to start a game after you got blown out 8-1 and
07:40embarrassed in the third period. That is not the first time either this year that I've seen David
07:44Postranek take a penalty in the first shift of the game. He did it once earlier this year
07:53after the Bruins had made a big point out of discipline, out of not taking penalties,
07:58out of making it a focus, like of really talking about it. The same thing. It was not in the
08:03defensive zone. It was, I think, in the neutral zone or close to the offensive zone, and it was
08:08literally the first 10 seconds of the game, and Postranek took a penalty. He's done this multiple
08:13times now this year. I'm sorry, that's not leadership. That is not leadership. That is not
08:20a player that's setting the example, that's showing the way, that's doing the right things to create
08:25the culture that's going to win, that's on board for everything that's going on. It's just not.
08:30I really like David Postranek as a person. I think he's a brilliant offensive player.
08:36I think he's a guy that can dominate at times with the way he plays and certainly with the
08:41goal scoring. He may go down as the best pure goal scorer in the history of the Boston Bruins,
08:46but those kind of plays are bad. They're bad for the team. They're bad from a leadership
08:51perspective. They're bad from one of your best players, and there's too much of that from
08:55Postranek this year. There's too many plays like that where it's careless, where it's kind of lazy,
08:59where it looks almost disengaged at times. It certainly doesn't look like the kind of player
09:04that you want setting the tone for everybody else on that team and organizationally. It's a fine
09:11line to walk with Posta because he's a hugely talented player. He's somebody that on a team
09:18like the Bruins where they are struggling to score, you're going to need David Postranek,
09:22and you're going to need him because he's your best source of offense and because he can make
09:26so many things happen. I'm sure on some level, Postranek in some of this stuff is also
09:36guilty more than anything else of trying to do too much because he feels the pressure also
09:40of trying to score, of trying to make things happen offensively, of maximizing every shift,
09:45of doing his part and all that. I think that is certainly a part of what we're seeing here,
09:50but sometimes with him, when he feels that way or when he feels that pressure, it turns
09:55into a really counterproductive thing that we're seeing on the ice. That was what we saw at the
10:01beginning of that game against Seattle. It was just the exact opposite of how you want to start
10:06a game, coming off a game where you got humbled and embarrassed and humiliated in Winnipeg against
10:13a good team. So just not a lot to like, obviously, about the Thursday night game against Seattle.
10:20On Saturday night, they will be going into Vancouver, which could be another tough one.
10:25It should be interesting with guys like Elias Lindholm and Nikita Zadorov going back to where
10:30they used to play and Danton Heinen and Jake DeBrus being there. Really interesting things
10:35that it will play into as far as that game goes. All right, let's move on from where we are with
10:43the Bruins right now. They're still in a playoff spot. I believe they're still in the third spot
10:47in the Atlantic Division, so they're still in a pretty decent place. They were there at
10:51Thanksgiving, so I still think they're in an okay place, but I think we're seeing a team with a lot
10:57of flaws that is going to be really up and down and is not going to be as consistent as they've
11:02been in the past. That speaks to not a great thing, not high hopes for the playoffs and not
11:11great expectations for the postseason for this team right now. All right, let's move on to the
11:16big news for the weekend. Oliver Wallstrom, former first-round pick, I think he was the
11:23first-round pick in 2018 by the New York Islanders, 11th overall I believe, picked up on waivers by
11:29the Boston Bruins today. That means Wallstrom was put on waivers on Friday. Teams had 24 hours to
11:36take him. He obviously got through a lot of the waiver process because the Bruins are in a playoff
11:40spot, so they're pretty high up. They took Wallstrom, the Bruins did, with their spot in
11:48the waiver wire, so he will now be a member of the Boston Bruins. I don't know how quickly he's
11:54going to be able to get to Vancouver. That could be somewhat challenging just because of getting
12:01flights to Canada, across the country, all that stuff, but I think this is a really interesting
12:08pickup by the Bruins. I think there's some potential there. Obviously, he's a former
12:18first-round pick, and we all know him as a kid that grew up in Maine that did the mini one-on-one,
12:23I think it was 2011, it was a while ago, I know that, and did a lacrosse-style goal. He picked
12:32the puck up on his stick, did a spinorama, and then fired it almost lacrosse-style to score,
12:38and it made highlight reels all over the country. It definitely was memorable as far as the mini
12:43one-on-one goes when they still did the shootout-style mini one-on-one, which they don't
12:47do anymore. Now, it's a three-on-three game for three minutes, and it's like a tournament,
12:53which I think is actually, the way Mass Hockey and the Bruins do it now I think is great because
12:57it involves more kids, it's more sort of the small area game, team-oriented play,
13:04than the sort of individualistic shootout thing that they used to do, but that's neither here
13:09nor there. And by the way, that is going on I think soon at the Garden, too, within the next
13:15week or two, the championships for the mini one-on-one. District 9, which is where Newton is,
13:20we took part in it a week or so ago in Waltham for our district. It was phenomenal.
13:25Most teams ever in District 9 participating, so it was teams like Winchester, Newton, Lexington-Bedford,
13:35Watertown, Waltham, Belmont, Billerica I believe was there, Arlington. So a lot of sort of heavy
13:46hitters and traditional hockey towns were involved, and it was great. Extremely well-run every year,
13:53it's a great event, it's something the kids look forward to and get really excited about,
13:58and they do a great job. And it's totally put on by Mass Hockey and the Boston Bruins, so
14:04shout out to them for continuing to do the mini one-on-one. It's one of the best things going
14:08as far as youth hockey goes in Massachusetts and New England. And if you're not involved,
14:12if your association isn't involved, ask your district rep. Talk to your association people,
14:18the people on your board in your town, ask the district rep when's the district
14:23mini one-on-one tournament, like how can you get involved, because if you're not involved
14:28right now with your town at the squirt and peewee level for both boys and girls,
14:33you need to be, because there's no reason not to do it. It's a fantastic, phenomenal event,
14:38and if you win the districts, the kids get to go play at the garden, and if they win that,
14:42they get a huge trophy, and the squirts get to go to NHL All-Star Weekend. So it's pretty
14:48unbelievable, and it's a great thing, and it's one of the great parts of being in youth hockey
14:54in Massachusetts, and it's one of the great things that Massachusetts hockey does. So get involved
15:00if you're not doing it right now. I highly recommend it. We've done it the last two years
15:04in Newton, and it's been awesome. All right, so getting back to Oliver Wallstrom, that's where
15:10he first popped up on everybody's radars, was with the mini one-on-one, but now the Bruins are
15:15taking him on waivers. Had a year at Boston College, was at the U.S. national team for a few
15:23years, but has had an interesting career. He's one of those players that's super-duper talented,
15:31I think, offensively skilled, but it never translated with the Islanders into huge
15:37seasons. I think the most he's scored in any of his pro seasons is like 13 goals and 24 points
15:44or something like that, and that was like four or five years ago with the Islanders.
15:48He was never really down in the AHL. There was one season he was down there. Otherwise,
15:53he's been with the Islanders. He's been in and out of the lineup. He's had one or two years where he
15:58played pretty regularly, but for the most part has been in and out, and been sort of like a 13th
16:03forward for the Islanders, but been on their roster. It finally got to the point where the
16:09last couple of years he hasn't even really put up offensive numbers. He's just had a couple of
16:13goals in each season, hasn't played that often, and maybe it seems to me that maybe a change of
16:20scenery was in store for him, and we're still talking about a 24, 25-year-old kid, so still
16:26very young, still a kid that can potentially go to a different locale and really catch on. I think
16:33given his skill, given his offensive level, if the Bruins can play him with some of their better
16:37players and just let him go and give him a chance to establish himself, maybe they can find something
16:44there. I think the talent is obviously there. The Islanders tend to run, in years past and
16:52traditionally, but run a kind of conservative thing, outfit as far as what they do to create
16:56offense. Maybe that has put some wraps on Wallstrom, and maybe playing in that system
17:04and playing with some of those players and coming up through that system didn't allow him to flourish
17:08offensively, and maybe going somewhere else would do that. It's going to be really interesting to
17:13see, but I also think this is a no-brainer for the Bruins to at least try with a player like this,
17:18especially a guy that's got a New England background, that's got some history as far
17:22as being involved with the mini one-on-one. He's been on Nessun before, and he's a known
17:28quantity around here because he played in Hockey East and because of the mini one-on-one,
17:33so that adds to it as well. I think that makes it a nice fit, but at the end of the day, I think
17:38he's going to have to show that he can produce offensively. They're going to bring him in here,
17:42not for his great two-way play, not for really anything aside from the offensive talent that
17:48he has and seeing if that can translate into goals and points and making plays. For a Bruins
17:55team that needs some help there, it doesn't have enough high-end offensive players that can do that,
18:02and maybe this lights a fire under some players too for the Bruins. This gives competition to
18:10guys like Justin Brezow, to guys like Trent Frederick, to guys like Morgan Geeky. He's going
18:16to compete with them for a spot, and he's going to push all of those players. There's going to be
18:22somebody good now that's sitting as a forward if and when he comes in, and that should bring the
18:30best out of some of these other players. That will give Joe Sacco a hammer to wield if he's not
18:37getting the level best out of them and he's not getting full maximum effort from some of these
18:42forwards, then Wallstrom is going to be able to come in. I'm hoping the kid has a nice fit here.
18:51I've always been intrigued by him. He's had some pretty good games against the Bruins as a member
18:56of the Islanders, but he has not been able to put it together over the course of a full season
19:01at the NHL level, but he's still young enough that I think there's something there.
19:06I would like to see what he can do with the Bruins. I think this is a great pickup,
19:09but I'm really going to be interested to see what he can bring to the table as a former
19:13first-round pick. Good job, Don Sweeney and Bruins management for snagging Oliver Wallstrom.
19:18Now, let's see what he can do. As for right now, let's take a break from the podcast action
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20:46guaranteed. PrizePix, run your game. All right, let's get into some of the questions. This is from
20:56Matt Lombo, 24, and this goes right back to Oliver Wallstrom. Any chance Oliver Wallstrom is super
21:02talented and needed a change of scenery or is just another grinder for depth? I think that's a great
21:07question, Matt. He's not a grinder. Let's get that out of the way right quick. This is not a grinder
21:19type pickup. I don't think there's any reason the Bruins would pick up a grinder on waivers.
21:23They don't need more bottom six, fourth line kind of guys. I think they have plenty of those both at
21:29the NHL level and in Providence. This is a player that has offensive upside. This is a player that
21:37can put the puck in the net, that can create, that has great skill, that has something that
21:44some of those other Bruins players don't. Now, as I said before, it has not translated at the
21:50NHL level adequately. He's never had a 20-goal season. He's never had a big offensive season.
21:55He's never even been able to consistently push to stay in the lineup, aside from a year or two,
22:00on a night-in, night-out basis. It seems like he's always been caught up in a numbers game
22:05and has never been able to really establish himself, certainly not as a top six guy,
22:10at the NHL level. The Islanders gave him plenty of chances, certainly, because they invested a
22:16first-round pick on him and they wanted to see him hit. They wanted to see a return on their
22:21investment, and they didn't. I think there's a chance that he's definitely talented. We've all
22:28seen the skill. He was a first-round pick. You're not a first-round pick by accident,
22:35but he was also a fantastic player when he was young. He was really on a lot of people's radars
22:39because he had great skill. Maybe some of that has caught up, but we're still talking about a
22:44kid that's six-foot-two, over 200 pounds, has good size, has good skill level, played at Boston
22:49College and did pretty well there. We're talking about a guy that's had a little bit of track
22:54record here. The one thing that has been tough about him, and maybe it's a little bit of a
23:00cautionary tale, and maybe it was a little bit of a mistake by the Islanders, is it seemed like
23:04he was a young player that, in his early 20s, never got to play for a long period of time.
23:11He had a decent stretch one year in the AHL where he played a lot. He had at least one year in the
23:17NHL where he played over 70 games, but I don't think he was in the lineup enough as a young
23:24player consistently to really develop his game. He looks to me like a player that probably should
23:30have spent more time in the AHL, really developing his confidence, playing in all situations,
23:34developing his game, and getting to the point where he could be a finished product at the
23:39NHL level. Instead, it seems like they had him in the NHL, bounced him in and out of the lineup,
23:47didn't do the best things for him developmentally, and that maybe has ended up being a problem for
23:53him and being an issue and part of the reason that he struggled to establish himself. So I
23:58think the onus for this might be on the Islanders and the way that they utilized him,
24:03and this is why with a guy like Matt Potra, I think most people should be on board and
24:10certainly I am with him being in Providence right now. I think he's got five goals in five straight
24:15games for the Providence Bruins and he's really caught fire and he's really gaining his confidence
24:20offensively, sort of finding his mojo and getting his game to where you want it to be
24:26so he can be ready to contribute when he comes back to the NHL level. But like
24:30him playing, Potra playing a third line role where he's playing 10-11 minutes a night and
24:35sometimes a healthy scratch, sometimes in at the NHL level, like that doesn't do a young player,
24:39a guy in his early 20s, any favors. You know, you're not helping a player like that become
24:43the best that they can be in that kind of a scenario, in that kind of a situation, and I
24:48think that's honestly what Wahlstrom found himself in a lot, that situation with the Islanders,
24:53and I don't think it was good for him and I think we've seen that now with the way things panned
24:58out. Now maybe he's a first-round bust, maybe he's never going to establish himself anywhere,
25:03maybe he just becomes one of those cautionary tale players that never quite made it despite
25:09really a lot of early flash, that could also be as well. But I think when you think about a guy
25:16like Potra, I think Wahlstrom is a good guy to look at and say maybe the Islanders didn't do
25:21right by him with his development in his early 20s and that's why we see him struggling and now
25:26being waived at this point in his career, in his mid-20s, where you kind of really start to need
25:32to be a finished product of the NHL and, you know, he's going to be hitting free agency soon, I think,
25:38by his service time, and the Islanders just, you know, had had enough and we're going to send
25:43him down to the AHL at this point, which is too late. So we'll see, but he's super talented,
25:48not a grinder, and the Bruins, maybe they've found something here. That would be a tremendous
25:53story if they did. All right, this is from SausageKing75. I'm glad I'm not alone
26:01with David Pasternak. His play is lazy and it shows through that he was getting covered by
26:06Bergeron and others when he turned the puck over in the past. Quote, something's wrong with
26:10Pasternak, unquote, might be the most common excuse I see online. If he's hurt, then let him sit and get
26:17better. And that's from SausageKing75. I don't think that Pasternak is hurt. It seems like
26:25there is always the questions when he struggles of, is he hurt? Is something wrong with him?
26:31And some people have said that he's not extending for pucks, that he's not, you know, that in
26:37certain situations, it looks like he's trying to, like, protect himself instead of, like,
26:42going full out. There's a reluctance to shoot the puck at times. There's certainly a few things
26:48going on where you wonder if something is going on. And I can understand the evidence behind that
26:54or the thought behind that. But I also think that I don't think there's anything wrong with him.
27:03I think he was not in shape in training camp, played himself into shape at the start of the
27:09season, which lent itself to some really bad habits and bad things happening at the beginning
27:14of the year. And, you know, now he's kind of gotten himself into a little bit better place,
27:20but he's still making mistakes. He's still doing a lot of things where,
27:24yes, I do agree. I think playing with Bergeron and Martian covered a lot of his flaws and was
27:30really good for him and protected him to a certain degree. And now that he doesn't have that, some of
27:37those flaws are becoming much more apparent, more right in your face, more problematic, leading to
27:43issues, leading to goals against, leading to turnovers, leading to all that stuff.
27:48And it allows him to get exposed a little bit more when he needs to kind of drive the line.
27:53And I think that was some of the thinking behind bringing in a guy like Elias Lindholm,
27:57is that he was a Bergeron-like presence that maybe could cover for some of that stuff with
28:01Pasternak. But they, you know, have not had great chemistry. It seems like Pasternak really wants
28:06to play with Pavel Zaka as his center, and maybe that's part of this as well. But I, you know,
28:15I do wonder how good the Bruins can be if they really have, if the puck is on Pasternak's stick
28:25a lot, you know, given some of the negative plays that sometimes happen with him. And it's tough,
28:32too, because in the same breath that you see, like, the game that I talked about where he took
28:36the penalty in the first shift against Seattle, there were also games like a week or two ago
28:41where he was setting up Pavel Zaka in overtime for game winners. And, you know, I think you look at
28:49all that stuff and you say, do you just have to take the good with the bad with Pasternak?
28:53Is there a certain point where you say, we just can't handle the bad anymore and, you know,
28:58we need to scale back on how much he has the puck and sort of what he's doing. But then I think you
29:03take away his effectiveness when you do that. It's a really difficult spot to be in. I think the best
29:07thing you can do is what they tried to do, which was put a player like Lindholm with him that can
29:12protect him a little bit. But you're also talking then about, like, taking away from his offense
29:17because he's constantly going to be looking to cover, you know, for his teammates. And that
29:22becomes a complicated situation. But I don't think he's hurt. I do think he struggles a little bit.
29:29And we'll see what happens moving forward. But, like, I'm sure Pasternak is hearing some
29:36of this criticism right now. And there are times he needs to be better. Like, I think he's on a
29:41pace for, like, 80 or 90 penalty minutes. That one needs to change. Like, way too many offensive
29:47zone penalties, way too penalties that have nothing to do with, like, saving a goal, way too
29:51many penalties that are stick work, not moving your feet, kind of lazy. Like, all that stuff needs
29:55to change, needs to be much better than it is right now. You know one thing that doesn't need
30:01to be better? Us taking a break from the podcast to give game time some love. That's right. Nothing
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31:37is it? Game time. Yes, that's right, game time. All right, let us get one more question in here.
31:48Elias Lindholm needs to be put down like a walking dead zombie. This is
31:54going to go down as the worst contract in Boston Bruins history and that is from Mike Silvey
32:00on the Facebook fan page. Mike, I think you're going a little too far. I like Elias Lindholm,
32:04he seems like a nice guy, he has a family, so we're not going to talk about him being a walking
32:09dead zombie. I like him as a player. Obviously, the contract is not good with the offensive
32:17production right now. He's on pace for like nine goals and 30 points, eight goals and 29 points,
32:22something like that this season. There's been times where the centers for the Bruins
32:30have been dominated by the centers on the other team, like that blowout loss to Winnipeg. Mark
32:34Scheifele was all over it and just dominant and was having his way with Lindholm and that line
32:40when they were out on the ice. He has not been good offensively. He's been barely a presence
32:48offensively and that is a problem. He does not have the puck on his stick a lot. He's not a
32:53traditional center as far as a line driving center. He's more of a complimentary center.
32:57He's a guy though, I like his defense, I like his two-way play, I like his hustle,
33:02I like his physicality. I think there's a lot of things that he does well
33:07that you have to do well playing the center position if you want to be effective on a
33:11playoff team. But the one biggie for me is that he is just not ready when the puck gets to him
33:20in the offensive zone. He's unable to shoot, he's unable to cleanly handle the puck, he's unable to
33:26get off good scoring chances in areas where his teammates are setting him up for great chances.
33:33He has really struggled offensively and some of it to me looks like he's still getting used to
33:38playing with players on his team and the chemistry there. They're not on the same page right now,
33:44that's what it seems like to me. Some of that is understandable. You would think an elite player,
33:50an elite center in the world would not take very long to warm up to teammates, to get used to
33:57certain situations, to expect passes in certain situations, to be ready to finish when he gets
34:03the puck around the net, all that different stuff that hasn't been there. But perhaps Elias Lindholm
34:10is a guy that takes a little while to warm up, that takes a little while to get going, that takes
34:15a little while to get comfortable and for you to see your best out of him. Maybe he's that kind of
34:19a player and I think you have to hold out some hope, still just like 30 or so games into the
34:24season, that at the halfway mark or in the second half of the year, there's a better player in there
34:29that we haven't seen yet. I just have to believe that there's a better player in there than what
34:33we've seen. And we had some players, I know we were talking to Mark Diver earlier this week on
34:39the podcast and he mentioned maybe this guy is over the hill, maybe his best days are behind
34:43him and he's just hitting the wall. And I mean, God, maybe, but that's a bad scenario for the
34:50Bruins if that's what's going on right now. And I have to think at 28, 29 years old, that's not
34:55quite what we're seeing yet. They still has gas left in the tank and it's just that he has not
35:01gotten comfortable yet and fully up to speed on what he's doing with this team in this new
35:09environment. I mean, let's face it, he struggled with Vancouver when he first got there and he
35:15struggled for a while, basically the second half of the year from the time he got there, but then
35:19he caught fire in the playoffs and really played well. Maybe that's something that happens here,
35:24maybe a month from now, all of a sudden he's catching fire offensively, he's playing well
35:28with his linemates, he's playing well as a bumper on the power play, he's showing stuff that we
35:33haven't seen before. And he's just a better player than what we're seeing right now. Maybe
35:39all of that is going to come to fruition for him and maybe we're being a little impatient.
35:44And I want to keep that in mind because I'm not ready to make grand pronouncements about this
35:50being the worst contract in Bruins history or really slamming Don Sweeney for a bad contract
35:55and a bad signing based on a couple of months. I think Zdorov has been okay. He struggled too at
36:00the beginning and I think he's kind of showed what he can do. And I think he's shown enough
36:04now to see that he's going to be an asset during the playoffs. He's going to be a dirty, mean and
36:08nasty SOB around the net and he's going to bring a little attitude and intimidation to the Bruins
36:13that they really sorely needed on the back end. So even with the penalties and some of the mistakes
36:18he makes with the puck, I can see it with Zdorov. He's going to help. I haven't seen it yet with
36:22Lindholm, but I'm going to still give him some time to show me. And I think everybody should
36:26show some patience with him just in case he's one of those guys that needs a little extra time,
36:31that needs a long runway to get comfortable, that needs a little extra reps and timing to get it
36:40down with his teammates and to get to show what he can do offensively. Because I think he's better
36:45than this. He has to be better than this. He can't have had multiple 20-goal seasons in the NHL. He
36:50can't have had a 40-goal, 80-point season in the NHL based on what we're seeing right now. Maybe
36:56his confidence is really low too. Maybe he's one of those guys when you put him in a new situation,
37:00there's a little anxiety there and he needs to work through that and get into his comfort zone.
37:05Like maybe all this stuff is going on. It's really hard to say. Seems like kind of a quiet guy.
37:11Doesn't seem like the life of the party in the locker room at all. So maybe he's just kind of
37:15a quiet guy that goes through these periods of self-doubt about his game and has these ebbs
37:21and confidence. It's hard to say right now. But I think it's prudent to give a guy like that some
37:26time before we jump on his back and really start making grand pronouncements about how
37:32good or bad the contract was. So good questions this week, guys. Thank you very much for participating.
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38:08create an account, and use the code CLNS for $20 off your first purchase. What time is it?
38:14Game time. That's right. Game time. All right. Thanks, everybody, for listening. We'll be back
38:20to the regular podcast with guests next week. The Bruins will be taking on the Vancouver Canucks
38:25on Saturday night. That should be interesting. But for the time being, I am signing off from
38:29here at J Peak in Vermont, where my son has a hockey tournament. So thanks for listening,
38:34and we'll see you at the ring.