We’ll learn in the coming months whether the danger Brad Marchand and David Pastrnak pose together has staying power.
ESPN NHL experts Greg Wyshynski, Dimitri Filipovic, Victoria Matiash and Tim Kavanagh debated Friday whether the Boston Bruins’ first-line wingers would finish the 2019-20 regular season as the NHL’s top-scoring duo. With 44 points apiece and 88 combined, Edmonton Oilers stars Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl are the chief rivals to Marchand and Pastrnak, who have 37 and 36, respectively, and 73 total.
Among the experts who “buy” the idea McDavid and Draisaitl will out-score Pastrnak and Marchand are Wyshynski, ESPN’s senior NHL writer, and Filipovic, the Worldwide Leader’s hockey analytics writer.
“Insta-buy,” Wyshynski writes. “McDavid and Draisaitl have a 14-point margin (actually 15) after Thursday night, a 53-point advantage over the past two seasons and, barring injury or an Oilers’ collapse, are going to make life difficult for us Hart Trophy voters.”
“Buy,” Filipovic asserts. “No team leans more heavily on its star players than the Oilers do on McDavid and Draisaitl, with each of them being responsible for north of 40 percent of the team’s total goals scored thus far. They’re also the only two forwards currently averaging over 22 minutes, and there’s no reason to believe that’s going to change any time soon. The Bruins might wind up being more efficient on a per minute basis, but sheerly based on the raw volume of opportunities, the Oilers’ duo is a better bet to accumulate more total points.”
ESPN fantasy hockey analyst Matiash believes the Bruins pair will edge past its Oilers counterpart because opponents will adjust going forward, limiting McDavid’s and Draisaitl’s impact.
“Sell,” Matiash writes. “But it will be close. Oppositions will readjust their approach in defending the Oilers’ outlying top duo out of necessity as the months wear on, just as we saw teams eventually accustom their strategy in playing the Avalanche’s No. 1 line last season. That will result in the gap narrowing between these two forward pairings before ultimately flipping in the Bruins’ favor by spring.”
Kavanagh, ESPN’s NHL editor, also believes Oilers opponents’ inevitably shifting strategies will tilt the highest-scoring-duo race in Pastrnak’s and Marchand’s favor.
“Sell,” Kavanagh writes. “McDavid and Draisaitl are on pace to win this by a wide margin (310 to 270), but they play in a division (3.14 goals against per game for non-Edmonton teams) and conference (3.02) that is more stingy than the Bruins (3.32 and 3.16 for non-Boston teams, respectively).”
ProHockeyTalk’s Adam Gretz on Monday ranked the Boston Bruins first-line wingers as the second-most-dangerous duo in the NHL. All Pastrnak and Marchand must do is maintain their fervent scoring pace and wait for McDavid and Draisaitl to fall back to earth in order to prove Gretz, Wyshynski and Filipovic wrong.
