Is Bruins' David Pastrnak the favorite for the NHL's Hart Trophy?

It seems like nothing can stop David Pastrnak. After last season saw him finish in third in Hart trophy voting with 61 goals and 52 assists for 113 points in 82 games, he’s stepped it up again this year with 11 goals and 13 assists for 24 points in 15 games. His and the Bruins’ early success shows that Pastrnak is more than ready to be “the guy” on this Bruins team with Patrice Bergeron retired.

Tyler Yaremchuk and Steven Ellis talked about Pastrnak and the Bruins on "Daily Faceoff Live."

Tyler Yaremchuk: Pastrnak’s start is remarkable, and sometimes it feels like maybe it’s because he’s a winger or because there’s a lot of offensive help on that Bruins team, we don’t include Pastrnak in the conversation with the McDavids and the Matthews’ and the Draisaitl’s, and damn it, we should. 11 goals in 15 games is stupid good.

Steven Ellis: Pastrnak wasn’t even a first-round pick in any of the hockey pools I was in this year. I feel like he’s almost so underrated compared to some of these other guys. His shooting percentage right now is at 15.9%, that’s up from 15% from last year. So he’s shooting better than he was last year.

With goal scorers, when they’re not scoring, and you see it a lot at the junior level, and you see it a lot for younger guys when they’re not scoring, you lose confidence. It seems like Pastrnak has never had a confidence issue in his career. He continues to find the back of the net, he’s shooting from everywhere.

Pastrnak’s made Pavel Zacha a very good center at this point. If you look at the corsi for percentage without Pasta this year, it’s just 28% for Zacha, as opposed to almost 50 with him. When you look at that, it’s just the combination working. It’s two guys who are friends from the past, but they weren’t necessarily guys who had a lot of experience playing together. Zacha has almost no experience with the national Czech team while Pastrnak is a local hero there.

But, it just seems like he could play with just about anyone because he knows how to score. Just give him the puck and he’ll figure it out, and that’s why he’s one of the best goal-scorers in the league.

You can watch the full episode here…