After Pastrnak's Payday, Marchand Thrilled To Have 'Two Rich Linemates'
BOSTON (CBS) -- Brad Marchand is happy to finally have his dynamic young teammate David Pastrnak locked up and ready to join the Bruins at training camp over the weekend. He's also happy that he can make Pasta pay for dinners now.
"Yeah, two rich linemates, I don't have to pay for anything!" Marchand joked with reporters after practice on Friday at the Warrior Ice Arena. The winger is certainly happy to see his teammate get paid, but he's even more excited to have Pastrnak's presence in the locker room loosening guys up.
"It'll be great to have Pasta back. He's just awesome to have around the room, always having a good time and laughing and joking around," said Marchand. "He's obviously a phenomenal player on the ice. It's great to have [the contract] taken care of and we're all excited to have him back."
The only thing Marchand might have to change is calling Pastrnak his "linemate". Right now, head coach Bruce Cassidy is planning on parking Pastrnak on David Krejci's right wing and filling in the right side of the Marchand-Patrice Bergeron line with another winger. Promising rookie Anders Bjork got the first shot at skating with the duo on Friday, and Marchand liked what he saw.
"He's a very skilled kid," Marchand said of Bjork. "Very, very smooth skater, and he sees the ice well. So it'd be fun to play with him."
Bjork is far from nailing down the right wing spot alongside Marchand and Bergeron, but he sounded eager to learn as much as he could from them and do all the right things in order to land the key role.
"The biggest thing is competing and winning puck battles, things like that, just doing the little things right," Bjork told reporters on Friday. "Every little puck battle they're competing 100 percent and they're doing all the little things right, which really adds up. I'm just trying to copy that and implement that myself."
Pastrnak is expected to join the team on Saturday for the second day of training camp practices. And dinner will probably be on him.
