I must admit to you all that I do not speak Czech.
I also do not know how to read it.
It’s just not something that ever came across my radar in my years of schooling. I wish I had the ability to go back in time and explain to the Billerica school system that I would someday cover a hockey team with several Czech-born players on their roster, and that it would ultimately serve me extremely well to learn Czech. It definitely would have been more valuable than say learning how to play ‘The Entertainer’ on a keyboard. I mean, we have ice cream trucks and they’ve pretty much cornered the market on that song, so I’m not sure what I was supposed to do with that skill.
But on Friday, a Czech article (with some help — an oxymoron, you’ll learn — from Google translate) regarding Bruins winger and potential future unrestricted free agent David Pastrnak had me almost fall out my chair.
Talking about his Boston future, Pastrnak said this, according to Google translate.
“Now I’m going into my ninth season and I haven’t won anything yet. Time flies and I regret it every year,” the translation claimed. “On the other hand, I’m healthy and I’m not worried about preparing for the new season, which I haven’t been able to do in the last three years.”
Nope, don’t like that.
The idea that he’s frustrated with not winning anything is cool from a determination standpoint (it worked for Nathan MacKinnon last year), but it’s also not ideal for the Bruins given their current situation. Even with Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci back — or in this case, especially with Bergeron and Krejci back — the Bruins are entering ‘last dance’ territory with an inevitable cap crunch coming. My first read on that comment was that Pastrnak wants to win ASAP and a potential retool in 2023-24 (also known as the first year of his next contract) isn’t of particular interest as he hits double digits in the ‘NHL seasons’ category.
Barring the trading of a core piece, there’s little the Bruins can do to avoid the upcoming retool, by the way. A Pastrnak extension is going to cost at least $9 million a year, you’d think, and that could leave the Bruins about $12 million or so to build out the rest of their roster once the Bergeron and Krejci bonuses hit. It’ll be tiiiiight.
So, again, don’t really like that!
But, fortunately for our worries, things can and did get lost in translation according to native speakers.
So as someone that speaks Czech, I would just change the "I regret it every year" part of the quote to something more along the lines of the not winning making him "feel bad/sad" every year.
— Ondřej Černín (@ondrejcernin) August 19, 2022Can confirm. The translation was extremely bad. It’s a pretty generic answer for someone who loses. It should be something along the lines. “Time flies and it feels bad every year that I didn’t won anything yet”
— TheOld (@TheOld_red) August 20, 2022(Sidenote: I sincerely appreciate those who weren’t complete Twitter Bitches™ and actually helped me understand the proper context of this quote without crying or suggesting that I’d actually want something like Pastrnak leaving to happen. The Twitter Bitches™, meanwhile, can go back to eating their toilets. Imagine complaining at someone for not knowing the lexicon of a language spoken 3,000 miles that way?)
Beyond the quote, I do find the fact that the B’s and Pastrnak haven’t hammered out a contract yet a tad unnerving. That’s natural though. He’s a superstar talent on a team that can’t afford to lose a superstar talent. Now, do I think it’s legitimately concerning? Meh, not yet. Ask me again at the end of training camp. That tends to be when Don Sweeney takes care of his pending free agents, and when he hammered out his last two monster negotiations, with in-camp extensions for Brad Marchand (2016) and Charlie McAvoy (2021).
And Sweeney hasn’t expressed any concerns about the timeline with Pastrnak.
“David’s still over in Europe and likelihood is he’ll come back and we’ll talk between now and then. When he gets back, we’ll maybe have a better idea of a deal timeline,” Sweeney said earlier this month. “But I don’t have one today and you guys know me well enough, I’m not going to comment publicly on ongoing negotiations, but we’ve been in regular contact with JP [Barry].”
Sweeney’s not even concerned about the potential of not getting a deal done by the end of camp.
“It’s part of the business,” Sweeney said of the possibility. “You know, leverage is out there and the conversations are ongoing. We’ve made our intentions known all along and we’ll continue to do that, and we’ll go from there. But you know, as far as entering the season [without an extension in place], not a problem.”
On an unrelated note, does anybody know if Rosetta Stone is having a sale?
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Ty Anderson is a writer and columnist for 985TheSportsHub.com. He has been covering the Bruins since 2010, and has been a member of the Boston chapter of the PHWA since 2013. Any opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of 98.5 The Sports Hub, Beasley Media Group, or any subsidiaries. Yell at him on Twitter: @_TyAnderson.
