Bruins
“I like this! Many pitchers been in comparison with me via the years however by no means hockey that was lovely.”
Armed with a howitzer of a one-time shot, misleading wrister and an assortment of dekes and dangles saved in his offensive-zone arsenal, Bruins winger David Pastrnak has already drawn loads of comparisons to among the greatest goal-scorers in NHL historical past.
However how a couple of legendary Crimson Sox pitcher?
Bruins bench boss Jim Montgomery drew the parallels between Boston’s high scorer and a former Sox ace following Boston’s 3-2 win over the Predators on Saturday — a contest the place Pastrnak lit the lamp with an illusory penalty-shot snipe.
“I preferred it. Proper within the high nook,” Montgomery stated postgame. “He disguised it, form of regarded like Luis Tiant, proper? He introduced it again behind him.”
Tiant, who pitched for the Crimson Sox from 1971-78, often befuddled batters together with his distinctive windup — with the righty twisting his physique till his again was totally dealing with residence plate to be able to disguise his upcoming pitch.
Much like Tiant’s capacity to maintain the batter guessing, Pastrnak was capable of protect his supposed goal from Predators goalie Juuse Saros earlier than discovering twine within the high nook.
Montgomery’s postgame feedback caught the eye of Tiant, who praised Pastrnak’s aim on X, the social-media platform previously often known as Twitter.
“I like this! Many pitchers been in comparison with me via the years however by no means hockey that was lovely,” Tiant posted.
Talking after the Bruins’ victory over Nashville, Pastrnak acknowledged that the inspiration for his set of strikes towards Saros was truly rooted in one other sport in style in his native Czech Republic.
“This can be a shaggy dog story. I don’t know if you recognize the game floorball,” Pastrnak stated postgame. “Floorball is a giant sport in Europe. I promised my buddy that I’ll go observe with them. I went and, actually, I used to be horrible. All of them shoot like that.
“I attempted to try this there and I used to be actually unhealthy at it, so I attempted it on the ice and was significantly better with it on the ice than I used to be at floorball observe.”
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