{"id":582998,"date":"2026-05-25T01:30:18","date_gmt":"2026-05-25T01:30:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/582998\/"},"modified":"2026-05-25T01:30:18","modified_gmt":"2026-05-25T01:30:18","slug":"after-career-high-season-bruins-have-to-consider-pavel-zachas-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/582998\/","title":{"rendered":"After Career-High Season, Bruins Have to Consider Pavel Zacha\u2019s Future"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Boston Bruins<\/a> do not have to make an immediate decision, but they have an important one looming.<\/p>\n

Pavel Zacha<\/a>\u2019s four-year deal expires at the end of the 2026-27 season, and he enters the last season of his contract coming off a career-high year. He scored 30 goals, shot at a 22.9% rate, and finished with 65 points.<\/p>\n

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He centered the dominant second line, playing alongside Casey Mittelstadt<\/a> and Viktor Arvidsson<\/a>. They finished with the third-highest goal differential (+19) in the league.<\/p>\n

He also played on the Bruins\u2019 first power play unit. He had 22 power play points (11-11\u201322) this season, setting career-highs on the man advantage. <\/p>\n

If he were healthy, he would have represented Team Czechia at the 2026 Winter Olympics. He was not, so he did not go<\/a>. He used the time to recover from an upper-body injury, returning from the long break to score a league-leading 13 goals in March.<\/p>\n

Zacha finished third on the Bruins in scoring this season, only behind David Pastrnak<\/a> (100) and Morgan Geekie<\/a> (68).<\/p>\n

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Though his contract does not expire until 2027, Zacha is eligible for an extension on July 1.<\/p>\n

The Bruins do not have to rush, and on breakup day, Zacha said there \u201chasn\u2019t been really any talks\u201d about his extension. He is leaving that to his agent, \u201cif there\u2019s going to be anything.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBoston\u2019s been a big help for my personal life and also hockey-wise when I came from [New] Jersey, I turned my career here a little bit, so of course you would want to stay here,\u201d Zacha added. \u201cI think it\u2019s also not up to me fully, so we\u2019ll see how it goes. But yeah, I like Boston, so it would be fun to be here for a long time.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Zacha\u2019s career turned around after the one-for-one Haula-for-Zacha<\/a> deal in 2022. In his first season in Boston, he scored more points (36) than he had in a single season in New Jersey<\/a>, and that was Zacha\u2019s lowest single-season total in Boston.<\/p>\n

An extension will be costly, and the longer the Bruins wait, the higher the price could get, especially if Zacha has a season comparable to this past one. AFP Analytics<\/a> projects Zacha\u2019s extension to be five years at $7.32 million annually, a nice raise from the $4.75 million he currently makes.<\/p>\n

However, Cam Neely<\/a> has said that the Bruins do not have a No. 1 center, and both he and Don Sweeney<\/a> shared their desire to add speed and skill to the lineup.<\/p>\n

Centers are a need, as always, but this summer\u2019s free agency pool does not provide that guy. Teams around the league are looking for help down the middle, and a 29-year-old center who can score and play both sides of special teams might fit plenty of needs.<\/p>\n

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He can also play on the wing, as he did when he first got to Boston.<\/p>\n

This does not mean that the Bruins should move him, but if they do, their second-line center spot frees up. And while James Hagens<\/a> is an option, though likely to start on the wing and continue developing, Fraser Minten<\/a> is another option to take on top-six minutes.<\/p>\n

But Zacha is in the prime of his career, and Minten is just getting started on his.<\/p>\n

Moving Zacha would create yet another hole for the Bruins to address, unless they address it by trading him in a package for a top-line center.<\/p>\n

The Bruins trust him; he plays everywhere. Back in November, Marco Sturm<\/a> said he found the motor of the second line when he moved Zacha to center, and throughout the season, he praised Zacha for shooting more.<\/p>\n

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The Bruins can afford to wait, but that just delays the decision until next season. Zacha is coming off the best season of his career, and the B\u2019s can let that play out into next year to address their immediate need in the top-six.<\/p>\n

Zacha may not be the Bruins\u2019 long-term answer as a No. 1 center, but he has become a staple of the top-six and power play, as well as an option on the penalty kill. That leaves the front office with an important decision over the next year: commit to him as part of the core, or use him, one of their more valuable assets, to continue to build.<\/p>\n

FOLLOW @JACKSTUDLEY13 ON \ud835\udd4f<\/a>\u00a0 | FOLLOW @BOSHockeyNow ON \ud835\udd4f<\/a><\/p>\n

The post After Career-High Season, Bruins Have to Consider Pavel Zacha\u2019s Future<\/a> appeared first on Boston Hockey Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Boston Bruins do not have to make an immediate decision, but they have an important one looming.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":582999,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5099],"tags":[154,95,5132,530,5379,2178,4112,5,4261,576,4,7610,1745],"class_list":["post-582998","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boston-bruins","tag-boston","tag-boston-bruins","tag-bostonbruins","tag-bruins","tag-casey-mittelstadt","tag-david-pastrnak","tag-fraser-minten","tag-hockey","tag-morgan-geekie","tag-new-jersey","tag-nhl","tag-pavel-zacha","tag-viktor-arvidsson"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116632631605485406","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582998","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=582998"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582998\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/582999"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=582998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=582998"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=582998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}