David Pastrnak had one of the crowning moments of his Boston Bruins career on Tuesday night. He scored his 400th career goal with all his teammates showing their appreciation, then added his 401st to help lead the Bruins to a second consecutive win over their rival, the Toronto Maple Leafs. With everything trending right with the Bruins and Pastrnak specifically, apparently, now is a great time to start talking about the Bruins potentially trading him away?
NHL Insider and long-time Bruins reporter Jimmy Murphy delivered this take on his Bruins Vibes podcast. He thinks that the disrespect of Pastrnak not earning the captaincy could mean that the Bruins are going to trade him away. My question would be: do we really think Pastrnak cares if the letter on his jersey is a C or an A, and does that really have some subliminal messaging about Pastrnak’s future?
In my opinion, the Bruins are an Original Six franchise that values the list of players who have worn the letter. Boston made the correct choice to make Patrice Bergeron the heir apparent once Zdeno Chara left the team, but they admittedly jumped the gun a bit on giving Brad Marchand the letter. It’s not that Marchand didn’t deserve the letter, but they could’ve let the decision breathe a bit and figure out precisely what the future looked like.
The organization has plenty of time to give Pastrnak the letter. Why not appease the other candidates in the locker room a bit by putting them on equal ground with Pastrnak, and let the superstar separate himself in the conversation? He has been carrying the team on his back ever since Marchand left, and his leadership skills have been developing in tandem, according to all accounts from clips released by the team.
It’s fine to throw out a hot take now and then, but this seems like a bizarre one from Murphy. Pastrnak is leading this team from a projected last-place finish in the Atlantic Division to tying the first-place Montreal Canadiens in points over a month into the season. While the Bruins likely finish somewhere in the middle of those two outcomes, the team has proven that this isn’t going to be a full-blown teardown.
The front office now has to be wondering if they even want to be sellers this season. It’d send the wrong message to the locker room and the fans if a team that is looking competitive against some of the Eastern Conference’s contenders were to sell at the trade deadline. If it’d send the wrong message to trade a player like Pavel Zacha, then trading Pastrnak would be a slap in the face to everyone.
The Kansas City Chiefs face what may be their most important regular season game since Patrick Mahomes took over as full-time starting quarterback in 2017. Since then, Mahomes has led the Chiefs to a 95-30 regular season record, winning the AFC West division every season, and advancing to the conference championship game every year as well.
But Mahomes and the Chiefs’ incredible string of success stands in peril on Sunday when the Chiefs come out of their bye week — though still nursing the wounds of a devastating 28-21 defeat at the hands of the Buffalo Bills in their final game before the weeklong break — to face the new West division leaders, the Denver Broncos.
Bills rookie cornerback Maxwell Hairston who collected his first NFL interception in the game off a Mahomes throw, couldn’t resist adding a little insult to injury in his postgame comments.
At the podium for the first time since the aftermath of the Buffalo game on Wednesday, Mahomes delivered a pointed, four-word response to the rookie.
In fact, Mahomes said that Hairston’s remarks might help the Chiefs deal with their immediate problem — the Broncos.
Behind sophomore quarterback Bo Nix, Denver’s first-round pick, 12th overall, out of Oregon in 2024, the Broncos have powered their way to what, at least so far, looks like their best season since 2015 when Denver won its third Super Bowl in franchise history.
More importantly, at 8-2, the Broncos stand 2 1/2 game ahead of Kansas City in the divisional standings. The Chiefs not only are looking a steep comeback to win the division, but they are currently out of a playoff position altogether, occupying the eighth seed in the conference.
A loss to the Broncos could effectively put an end to the Chiefs’ hopes of winning an eigth consecutive division title — and could put them in danger of not making the playoffs at all. According to a mathematical formula created by The Athletic, the Chiefs currently have a 75 percent chance of making the playoffs, but that probability falls to 61 percent if they fail to defeat Denver on the road Sunday.
Clearly, the Bills need to address some flaws in their performance if they want to prevent that scenario, and one of those flaws was identified by Hairston. In the aftermath of the Bills’ win over Kansas City, Hairston — who was playing in only his second NFL game — said that he had identified certain body language “tells” in wide receiver Xavier Worthy that enabled him to lock down the Chiefs’ second-year pass catcher.
“Finding a difference in his posture and his effort for real — when he knows he’s not getting it, when it’s a run,” Hairston said, as quoted by journalist Tyler Dunne. “So just applying what I saw from the film room and taking it out to the field. There are tells that everybody gives. It’s just about finding it.”
Told of Hairston’s remarks on Wednesday, by reporters at Mahomes’ media appearance, the Chiefs’ two-time NFL MVP signal-caller had four words to say.
“I appreciate the info,” Mahomes remarked.
The three-time Super Bowl winning QB went on to say that the information provided by Hairston would help the Chiefs in their crucial game against the Broncos on Sunday, in a game that will be televised to almost the entire country by CBS in the 4:25 Eastern time slot.