2024-04-13 06:12:02
If the NHL had to choose the best Czech hockey player not named David Pastrňák, the choice could easily fall on Pavel Zacha. The former sixth draft pick flashed another shift in Boston and makes us forget about the usually lackluster performances in New Jersey.
Look at the best events of Pavel Zacha in the 2023/24 season. | Video: NHL.com
Forward Erik Haula scored 41 points last season, so far this year he has 35. He is 33 years old.
Twenty-seven-year-old Zacha, whom Boston acquired less than two years ago from New Jersey for Haula, finished with 57 points last year and this time he has 56 (19+37). He missed a couple of games, so even if he didn’t score in the remaining three games of the regular season, he would reach the best scoring average of his career.
“This deal is looking more and more like a steal,” Steve Conroy of the Boston Herald commented on the trade.
Zacha took another step forward in the current year. From the left wing, where he spent most of last season, he moved to the center of the attack, where he received much more responsibility towards the defense.
Although it is his natural position, there were also doubts as to whether he could handle the demanding role. Especially when he had to replace greats like Patrice Bergeron and David Krejčí in it.
And sometimes it was really hard. Zacha was looking for the right balance between attacking and guarding the back door.
“I have the feeling that as a center you sometimes focus a little more on defending and not so much on collecting points. I think that in a few matches I completely forgot that I also have to be productive. That I have to play as a center in the first two lines,” described the shapely Guild.
“The players I’m starting with have helped me a lot. The pasta has been rolling all season, thanks to which I’m where I am today,” he added about working with Pastrňák.
Boston coach Jim Montgomery split them up for a while during the season, but lately they’ve been shining on the same line again. Danton Heinen complements them perfectly.
At the moment, there is no doubt that Zacha can handle the role of center. Since the All Star break at the end of February, he has collected almost a point per game, and with a total of 56 points, he is second in the productivity of the Czechs, ahead of Martin Nečas from Carolina, who loses three points.
In addition, Zacha spends over 18 minutes on the ice per game, the most in his career.
“And they’re tough minutes,” coach Montgomery noted. “We use him in every situation, he’s almost always against the opposition’s best lines. To be honest, his offense probably suffers a little bit, but thanks to him and Charlie Coyle, we now have two first centers.”
Zacha also earned Montgomery’s trust by winning faceoffs unlike before.
In the last season, when he underwent blisters only occasionally, he had a success rate of around 45 percent. “When you’re playing on the wing and you’re going for a throw-in two or three times a game, it’s pretty hard to get the timing right,” noted Zacha.
That’s no longer a problem, Zacha is on the bulls practically all the time. And because it is also focused on the video, it suddenly has a success rate of almost 55 percent. Of the Czechs, only Tomáš Hertl is better at the moment, no one in Boston.
Zach’s season-high for free throws was 51.5 percent. Overall, he won about 46 percent of the bulls in New Jersey.
Here, too, the progress he has made in Boston is evident.