Pastrnak’s 20th goal continues his historic pace for B’s

BRIGHTON, Mass. - If there’s one continued bright light in a period of adversity for the Bruins, it is the season that David Pastrnak continues to put together.

It was Pastrnak who scored the first goal in the loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning on Thursday for his 20th goal of the season in Boston’s 28th game. With the NHL schedule barely into December, it’s the fastest that any Bruins player has reached the 20-goal plateau since Cam Neely scored his 20th goal in his just his 19th game back in the 1993-94 season. Neely went on to score 50 goals in 49 games in an amazing show of offense while battling through the lower body injuries that plagued the second half of his career.

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For Pastrnak, 22, it continues another big step in his development into NHL superstar. He’s on pace for 59 goals and 94 points. While it’s unlikely he’s going to end up scoring 50 goals this season, particularly with all the heavy hits he’s taken with so much of Boston’s muscle on the injured list, it certainly looks as if 40 goals are within reach.

To his credit, Pastrnak didn’t really want to talk about it too much following a tough loss to Tampa Bay here the B’s lost it in the third period.

“To be honest, I’m just playing. I don’t really care. Obviously, I like scoring and we scored early on…it was good because it gave us some confidence,” said Pastrnak. “But at this stage, we’re not playing well as a team and that’s what I’m worried about fixing.”

One thing Pastrnak was probably dwelling on was a second-period breakaway scoring chance where he very nearly scored his 21st goal, but instead was denied on a leg pad save by Louis Domingue. That’s the way it’s been this season with Pastrnak supplying an eye-popping 27.7 percent of the goals scored by the Bruins: If Pasta doesn’t score and score in bunches, then the B’s aren’t going to be putting up big numbers on offense.