Pastrnak meets the Game 7 OT moment

It was also a true instance where a player responded after being called out publicly by his coach, a phenomenon that hasn’t happened much over the last couple of seasons under Jim Montgomery, after his predecessor Bruce Cassidy was fired in part for being publicly critical of the players.

But this was truly desperate times with the Bruins reeling after losing each of the last two playoff games to Toronto, and on the verge of being the professional sports team to blow consecutive 3-to-1 series leads in the postseason. And Pastrnak responded with his best game of the first-round series where he not only scored the OT game-winner that will burn long in people’s memories, but he finished with a goal, a plus-1 rating, four shots on net and eight shot attempts in 21:21 of ice time along with a pair of hits in the hotly contested playoff game.

The B’s game-breaker was taking the puck hard to the net while fighting through body contact, including getting blasted by Leafs defenseman Joel Edmundson early in the first period on a wraparound attempt.

As far as responses go to being called out, Pastrnak couldn’t have done it any better after playing the role of playoff savior.

“I told him if I were the coach and you were me, I would say the same thing,” said Pastrnak. “I had no problem with him saying that. He’s trying to bring the most out of every single player. He expects more and I just took it as a man and tried to be better.

“I admitted that I need to be better, and I still have ways to be better.”

That should be a bit of a scary thought for the Florida Panthers as Pastrnak and the Bruins prepare for them in the second round of the playoffs, but for now it was about enjoying the kind of playoff moment that the Bruins game-breaker badly wanted to add to his Black and Gold resume.

It was also encouraging to the man who found the right button to push with Pastrnak after Montgomery had spent time this week chatting with fellow coaches like Jon Cooper and Mike Babcock looking for a way to help his Bruins push through their playoff adversity. Perhaps the Game 7 winning sets him up for a big series against the Panthers, which they will absolutely need if they are going to slay the dragon that ended their season in the first round of the playoffs last year.

“It’s so rewarding to be able to go through this and grow…as a coach to be able to understand. I was getting frustrated [thinking] ‘Why aren’t we grabbing this…why aren’t we grabbing this [earlier in the series]?’ But you can’t get frustrated with that," said Montgomery. "You have to continue to find ways to communicate and watch them grow. And that’s why I’m so proud of this group, because they grew [in the first round series.] You saw from the beginning [of Game 7] that we were different team.”

The other part to appreciate on the game-winning play for the Boston Bruins?

It would have to be the play of Lindholm, who assisted on Pastrnak’s OT game-winner with the long pass banked off the end boards and also scored Boston’s only goal during regulation that helped push things into overtime.

The veteran Swedish defenseman had just been okay in the first round series against the Maple Leafs leading into Saturday’s decisive Game 7, but picked the right time to produce his best game of the playoffs by finishing with a goal, two points, a plus-1 rating and a team-high six shots in net in 23:12 of ice time where he was managing the forecheck as well as he had during the series. It was a far cry from the frontline defenseman who appeared to be wilting under the forecheck pressure earlier in the series against Toronto after struggling in each of his first two playoff appearances with Boston as well.

“It was awesome. He made some great plays,” said Charlie McAvoy. “He gets a massive goal and then throws it off the wall [for the OT game-winner]. When we needed him the most, he played his best game of the series and that was huge for us.”

There was actually a lot of that going around for the Boston Bruins, who shook off the naysayers and the critics to capture the Game 7 win and did it while watching their star sniper add a Game 7 overtime winner to his burgeoning NHL resume.

It’s been a transitional year for Pastrnak with the Bruins this season as he took over more of a leadership role with Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci retired and is still expected to be the biggest source of offense on the team. That all becomes a little more difficult and a bit more uncomfortable in the postseason if your last name happens to be Pastrnak, but it didn’t stop him from stepping up and ending the Maple Leafs season when somebody in a Bruins uniform simply needed to step up and make a winning play in overtime.