Entering the Boston Bruins game against the Toronto Maple Leafs on Tuesday night at the TD Garden, their second matchup in four days, superstar David Pastrnak was looking for his next goal, which would have been the 400th of his career.
Late in the first period, with the Bruins clinging to a 3-1 lead, Pastrnak was whistled for a penalty. The penalty carried over to the second period after Boston killed the first 91 seconds. They successfully killed the rest of it inside the first minute of the middle period. Pastrnak was sent in on a breakaway coming out of the box and took a lot of weight off of his shoulders when he beat Maple Leafs goalie Dennis Hildeby for a 4-1 lead.
Pastrnak joins Johnny Bucyk, Phil Esposito, Patrice Bergeron, former teammate Brad Marchand, and Rick Middleton as 400-goal scorers for the Bruins.
Pastrnak has 39 goals since Jan. 1, which leads the NHL, and teammate Morgan Geekie was second with 36. It was fitting that he picked up one of the assists on Pastrnak’s milestone goal.
It was only a matter of time before Pastrnak scored the milestone goal. It was his ninth goal of the season. He could have scored it earlier in the game, as Boston had three first-period power plays and scored on two of them. Pavel Zacha scored the first one off a pass from Pastrnak when a pass hit his skate and found its way into the net.
Those have been some of the breaks that the Black and Gold have been getting during their winning streak, just like the pass from Geekie to send Pastrnak in alone to score his 400th goal early in the second period.
The Cleveland Browns are off to a 2-7 start, and fans have called for head coach Kevin Stefanski to be fired.
However, it is unlikely that Stefanski will be fired this season. Meanwhile, Browns insider Mary Kay Cabot revealed that he is likely to return in 2026. General manager Andrew Berry is also expected back, according to Cabot.
“The truth is, we have no idea what they are actually really thinking,” Cabot said on 92.3 The Fan. “I know going into it, Jimmy Haslam has indicated, I believe at the owner’s meetings, that he wasn’t holding Kevin and Andrew’s feet to the fire because this was the year they were trying to figure out what they had in one of these rookie quarterbacks. Or, at least at that point, they knew it was going to be one rookie quarterback.
“I don’t think there was this sense of ‘win or else’ this season. It was about fact-finding and figuring out what they had and helping them inform what to do in the 2026 draft. I just don’t think this was a year where the expectations were super, crazy high. But, still, you have to see certain things from your football team. … I do think that Jimmy believes in continuity and alignment in his organization. And, he knows that this is a challenging year with all of the rookies. In a perfect world, he’s going to want to try to maintain that continuity. And, see if they can’t get this thing on the right track with a new quarterback they will probably draft in 2026.
Cabot believes Haslam still has confidence in Berry and Stefanski, and both could very well return next season with a new quarterback.
Cleveland has struggled this season as the Browns are off to a 2-7 start and coming off a disappointing 27-20 road loss to the New York Jets.
Following the loss, Stefanski made it clear that the goal and focus are on turning it around and finding ways to win.
“Obviously frustrated, disappointed on that result yesterday,” Stefanski said on Monday. “And we’re spending time right now watching it with the players and trying to learn from that. You know, hard to win on the road, and certainly hard when you do some of the things we did in that ball game. But we’re committed to this thing, and we’ll just find ways to get better in all areas and we’ll go from there. Big division game at our place this week.”
Stefanski believes the Browns have to be better in all three phases of the game. Despite that being an issue all season, he has full confidence in his group.
The Browns will host the Baltimore Ravens on Sunday in a game Cleveland is a 7.5-point underdog.
Although Stefanski hasn’t been fired, and there are no signs he will be, his name has come up for other jobs.
The New York Giants fired Brian Daboll on Monday after a loss to the Chicago Bears. Following Daboll’s firing, NFL analyst Dan Orlovsky links Stefanski to the Giants.
“The No. 1 name that I would pay attention to if I were the Giants is what happens in Cleveland with Kevin Stefanski,” Orlovsky said on Monday on NFL Live. “If I could hand-pick a guy, it would be Stefanski. He’s an outstanding coach, two-time Coach of the Year.
“I understand people in Cleveland are like, ‘This guy can’t coach’. But there’s a lot of empirical data that would say otherwise. … I would pay attention to see what’s going on in Cleveland.”
Stefanski has been the Browns’ head coach since 2020 and has led them to the playoffs twice.