Leery update on David Pastrnak’s contract stalemate...

It is believed that forward David Pastrnak and the Boston Bruins are making progress on a new contract. That’s the good news. During Thursday night’s Insider Trading on TSN, Darren Dreger reported that “both sides are accessing the market right now” and added that “contract discussions have heated up since training camp has opened.”

Now we can understand how Pastrnak, who is the final year of a six-year, $40 million contract, would like to be paid what he deserves. After all, Colorado Avalanche’s Nathan MacKinnon’s signed a record-setting $12.6 million AAV contract last week… but it seems like the Bruins are the ones closely analyzing the market, based on Dreger’s report.

“Pastrnak understands and is clearly hopeful that something will get done sooner than later, but the Bruins continue to do their due diligence.”

We get that the Bruins are tight on the cap, but we are hoping they see and appreciate the value in Pastrnak and will get him what he deserves. Boston will definitely benefit from the report from Sportsnet that GMs across the league are preparing for a “sharp rise” in the league’s salary cap over the next few seasons. The salary cap will be at $82.5 million for 2022-23 and rise to $83.5 for 2023-24. t’s then projected to bump up another $4-plus million for each of the 2024-25 and 2025-26 campaigns. The projected salary cap of $92-plus million by the 2026 offseason would represent around a $10-million raise over three seasons.

They should definitely be taken into contact when it comes to Pastrnak - and let’s hope that the due diligence the Bruins are doing to get the numbers right for their star forward.