Pastrnak success with Bruins inspired by love of family

BOSTON -- When Keith Gretzky walked out of the dinner meeting, he felt something unusual. There were so many of these meetings, so many of these dinners, so many of these interviews held before each year's NHL Draft, and so many of them were completely uneventful. He had rarely experienced what he was feeling in this moment, the fervent hope that the teenaged prospect he had just interviewed would succeed in the NHL -- whether with Gretzky's club, the Boston Bruins, or on another team.

Gretzky, then the Bruins director of amateur scouting, had scout P.J. Axelsson and director of player personnel Scott Bradley with him at the dinner. They all felt the same; the kid had made an impression.
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"He had a lot of life to him, and you just really hoped the best for him," Gretzky said. "All three of us walked away going, boy, we really hope that he's a guy who plays in the NHL one day and that if it's not for us, then it's for somebody else."
So when the Bruins' pick, No. 25, in the first round of the 2014 NHL Draft approached and the kid was available, the excitement picked up.
As Gretzky recalled, "Scott Bradley just went crazy."
Their pick came. The choice was made.
David Pastrnak.
When Bruins president Cam Neely announced the selection on stage, the camera panned to the 18-year-old Pastrnak in the stands at Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia. He kissed his fingers and pointed them toward the sky, a tribute to his father, Milan, who had died 13 months earlier. He helped his mother, Marcela, into a hug.

It is what almost every prospect does in the situation: thank a parent, hug a mother, acknowledge those who have gotten him to this point. But for Pastrnak, it was somehow so much more. That was what Gretzky, the assistant general manager for the Edmonton Oilers, had found in that pre-draft interview. That was what had made him so keen to see Pastrnak blossom, wherever it might happen.
"How he talked about his family and what he had to do to play in Sweden and stuff like that, you walked away and you said, 'I really hope this kid -- if he doesn't play for the Boston Bruins - - you hope that he plays in the NHL just for himself and his family'," Gretzky said recently. "And that really doesn't happen a lot of times."
They didn't have wait long. He made his NHL debut less than five months later, on Nov. 24, 2014, and combined for 25 goals in 96 games his first two seasons.
He scored 34 goals in 75 games in 2016-17, and 35 last season in 82 games. He has 27 goals (and 55 points) in 49 games this season, putting him on pace for 45 goals, which would shatter his career high, and sending him to the 2019 Honda NHL All-Star Game at SAP Center in San Jose on Saturday (8 p.m. ET; NBC, CBC, SN, TVAS).

It will be his first All-Star Game and yet another validation of what Gretzky hoped for. With his 27th goal, scored on Wednesday against the Philadelphia Flyers, Pastrnak has the most goals by a Bruins player (121) prior to his 23rd birthday, which will be May 25.
"You thought he would be good, but he's probably exceeded everybody's expectations," Gretzky said. "Or he would have [been drafted] a lot earlier."
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The meal meant something to Pastrnak too. He felt the differences. He felt the connection.
"To be honest, it was a really deep dinner," he said. "Great guys. It was really deep and we got into deep stuff. I felt like you go to a lot of dinners at the Draft and just like for scouts, [they] don't know what to think about the players, it's the same for us.
"So it was a really, really good dinner and everybody there made me feel comfortable right away. So I was really hoping I can get picked by them. I had such a great feeling after that dinner. I opened up to them, which was like the way they talked to me, they just let me open up."
It was easy for him to talk. It was easy for him to show them who he was.
He hasn't stopped since.
It's one of the reasons why Pastrnak has always fit so well in the Bruins locker room, where he has seamlessly adapted, despite having a personality and a flair that aren't always welcomed in hockey. He does not shy away from over-the-top outfits - especially hats - or goal celebrations or demonstrations of his sense of humor, displaying a near-constant smile. He has never had to slow down or quiet down, something the rest of the NHL seems to have taken notice of -- and which should be on full display at the All-Star Game.
"Pasta, he's got a great personality, but he's just a smart kid," said Brad Marchand, Pastrnak's linemate and another player known for a dynamic personality. "I think he gets it. We never really had to talk to him or anything off the ice. He understands when it's time to joke around and when it's time to be serious and go to work.
"He's got a really good head on his shoulders. I think that's the way he was brought up. You can see that."
That is his mom.
"His mom means a lot to him," said Maple Leafs forward William Nylander, a onetime teammate with Sodertalje in Allsvenskan, the Swedish second division, who remains close with Pastrnak. "He takes care of her and she takes care of him. They've been through it all together."
Marcela raised two boys as a single mother, enduring a rollercoaster of a life that Pastrnak insists should be memorialized in an autobiography. As he put it, "the story she went through, it's unbelievable, with the husbands, with the boyfriends, with the work, with us kids, what she went through. Her life is just insane. She's so strong."

The admiration oozes out of him when he talks about her, which he does often. At that dinner. To his teammates. To Czech countryman and teammate David Krejci, with whom he lived for two months early in his career, and who prizes her visits to the United States for the cooking that comes along with them.
It's how his teammates have gotten such a strong sense of who Pastrnak is.
It's how they've come to admire him, in turn.
"He did mature at a young age," Marchand said. "He talks a lot about his childhood and growing up and where he came from and what he had and the struggles he had at times. You have a lot of respect for what he's been through and how he was able to put the work in and get here, and the way he takes care of his mom and his family.
"All those things make you grow up faster, and even the position he was put in when he got here and the weight that's on his shoulders, that all goes into it. I think that's why you're seeing him become such a great player now."
Because he wanted to be. Because he had to be.
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It was four days before his 17th birthday, on May 21, 2013, that Pastrnak would experience one of the most difficult moments of his life. He received an early morning phone call from his mother, who was in the Czech Republic. They had known it was coming -- Milan Pastrnak had been sick for a long time -- but that didn't lessen the pain of finding out his father had died.
"That was probably the toughest part of my life so far, being in Sweden, by yourself, getting a call from your mom that your dad passed," Pastrnak said. "It was not a great feeling. So it was tough. It was my second year there, so I could speak a little bit of [English and Swedish], but the happiest place was always at the rink.
"So really that was one of the big points. I wanted to do that for them. I wanted to make the most out of [hockey]."
That was where he had connected with his father, the place where they spent the most time together. Pastrnak would hang around the rink as Milan coached 16-to-18-year-olds, spending time on the ice, bonding after practice.
But even though their life together revolved around hockey, Milan refused to tutor his son in the sport. He made Pastrnak ask.
"He always told me, I will never give you any advice," Pastrnak said. "If you want advice, you come to me. But I'm going to let you play. … I remember it was actually the summer before I went to Sweden, I came to him. I want to train with you in the summer. He took me for training and running and stuff. I never came back to him again."
It was too hard. The workouts were too tough.
Pastrnak smiles.
Though he might have chafed against his father's workload, Pastrnak was well prepared for the rigors of training for the NHL. There was the work ethic. The drive. The refusal to rely on talent alone. There was the sense of humor, which came in handy in his first real introduction to the organization.
Because the other thing that Gretzky remembers about Pastrnak is his first development camp, his debut on the ice with the Bruins. Pastrnak had left his gear back in Sweden, where he had played for Sodertalje alongside Nylander, bringing only his skates. He lost his passport while at camp.
And yet, what stood out to Gretzky was all the falling.
"He's falling all over the place," Gretzky said, of Pastrnak's notable inability to stay upright on the ice. "But you could see the skill. The skill was off the charts and what he could do with the puck -- and he was a confident player. He's a very confident player. And you need that."
He would play 46 games in the NHL that first season, 2014-15, something Bradley predicted from development camp, scoring 27 points (10 goals, 17 assists). But it was what he did the next offseason, ahead of his second training camp, that would let the organization and his teammates understand just what Pastrnak might accomplish in the NHL.
"You look at the core strength from the first year to the second year to the third year, he paid the price," Gretzky said. "He worked hard in the offseason, he didn't just let the talent ride his way. He was a guy that really was determined to play in the NHL."
It's hardly a surprise, not to those who have come to know him.
"Because of where he came from, he knows how fortunate he is, how lucky he is to be in the NHL, to be having the career he's having," Marchand said. "It was a lot different for him growing up, so I don't think he takes any of it for granted."
It was less than five years ago that Gretzky sat down to dinner with the budding hockey player, not yet understanding what and who the prospect before him could become, not yet knowing whether he would have the opportunity to watch him grow from near or far.
That player is now an all-star, a player with a chance at 50 goals, a player who can make his life and career in hockey. He is what Gretzky hoped for him on that day.
"When we drafted him, you could tell he was excited to be a part of the Bruins and when he came on stage he was hugging everybody, but that was him," Gretzky said. "He felt like family."
And, as Gretzky continued, "family means everything to him."