David Pastrnak sat in the restaurant opposite a group of relative strangers. He probably didn’t intend to show them this side of him so soon, but he was getting emotional. He couldn’t help it. Little did he know, he was in the process of changing his hockey fate for the better.

It was the 2014 NHL Draft Combine weekend. As a projected late first-round pick, he was going through the interview process with various NHL teams, and he went out to dinner with the Boston Bruins brass.

Pastrnak, a lively kid who had just turned 18, was telling them about his life and how much an NHL contract would change it. He had moved away from his native Czechia at a young age and had played the previous two seasons in the SHL, Sweden’s top pro league. He began talking about his mom, a gas station attendant whom he once said “worked three jobs so I could have one stick,” and how much he wanted to support her. That’s when he welled up.

Peter Chiarelli, GM of the Bruins at the time, will never forget that day. As he recalled it to Daily Faceoff this week, 10 years later, the Bruins had the 25^th pick and had circled Pastrnak. They thought there was a chance he would fall to them because he was coming off a ho-hum performance at the 2014 Under-18 World Championship. They believed in his skill as a goal-scorer, but it was Pastrnak’s passion that won Boston over, Chiarelli says. Pastrnak pursued pucks with aplomb, he was competitive as hell, and that moment at the dinner showed them how much he cared.

“At that interview, this kid is like…he wants this, he wants to succeed because he wants to support his family, and he was really excited,” said Chiarelli, who is now vice-president of hockey ops for the St. Louis Blues. “So that box more or less was checked.”

Pastrnak wasn’t quite six feet tall at the time, and Chiarelli estimates Pastrnak was only 150 or 160 pounds when they met him, but his competitiveness gave them confidence he’d put the work in to fill out. He came directly to North America after the draft and suited up for AHL Providence, and while he put up strong numbers in that first half season, Chiarelli remembers Pastrnak had some growing pains and almost went home. They had instructed Bruce Cassidy, coach of the farm club at the time, to help Pastrnak get stronger.

 “I went down there a couple times, and he had trouble on the defensive wall getting the puck out,” Chiarelli said, “We had lunch with David and he was really despondent because we were being hard on him. I remember the big question mark was, is he going to be strong enough? And the next year when he came back, I think he might have been 10 pounds, 12 pounds heavier in muscle. I’m like, ‘This kid’s going to be a player.’ ”

Pastrnak saw 46 games of NHL action as an 18-year-old rookie and hinted at major promise with 15 goals in 51 games as a sophomore. But from 2016-17 onward, he was on a rocket ship. He has breached 30 goals seven times, 40 goals four times, 60 goals once and 100 points twice. Only Auston Matthews, Alex Ovechkin and Leon Draisaitl have more goals in the past eight years. Pastrnak is absolutely on a Hall of Fame trajectory, with 348 goals to his name by 28 years old.

Not bad for the 25^th pick. As Chiarelli recalls it, a few of the alternatives Boston considered panned out for good NHL careers, while a few others were total flops, but there was no topping Pastrnak as a home run pick.

In many ways he was a microcosm of what has become an extremely influential draft class on the NHL’s current power structure. Teams hit on some hyped players at the top, none more than Draisaitl at third overall, and we’re currently watching the top four picks (Aaron Ekblad, Sam Reinhart, Draisaitl and Sam Bennett) battle in the Stanley Cup Final. But that first round was also a minefield. Michael Dal Colle, Jake Virtanen and Haydn Fleury were big whiffs in the top 10, while William Nylander and Nikolaj Ehlers were excellent picks. Teams found gem after gem in the mid to late rounds, from center Brayden Point to blueliner Devon Toews, and 2014 was a banner year for goaltenders, none better than Igor Shesterkin.

A decade later, how should the Class of 2014 have panned out? Let’s redraft Round 1.

2014 ROUND 1 RE-DRAFT

(Actual pick in brackets)

1. Florida: Leon Draisaitl, C (Edm, 3^rd)
2. Buffalo: David Pastrnak, RW (Bos, 25^th)
3. Edmonton: Igor Shesterkin, G (NYR, 118^th)
4. Calgary: Brayden Point, C (TB, 79^th)
5. NY Islanders: Dylan Larkin, C (Det, 15^th)
6. Vancouver: William Nylander, RW (Tor, 8^th)
7. Carolina: Sam Reinhart, C (Buf, 2^nd)
8. Toronto: Aaron Ekblad, D (Fla, 1^st)
9. Winnipeg: Kevin Fiala, LW (Nsh, 11^th)
10. Anaheim: Nikolaj Ehlers, LW (Wpg, 9^th)
11. Nashville: Devon Toews, D (NYI, 108^th)
12. Arizona: Ilya Sorokin, G (NYI, 78^th)
13. Washington: Thatcher Demko, G (Van, 36^th)
14. Dallas: Adrian Kempe, RW (LA, 29^th)
15. Detroit: Gustav Forsling, D (Van, 126^th)
16. Columbus: Sam Bennett, C (Cgy, 4^th)
17. Philadelphia: Jared McCann, LW (Van, 24^th)
18. Minnesota: Brandon Montour, D (Ana, 55^th)
19. Tampa Bay: Viktor Arvidsson, RW (Nsh, 112^th)
20. Chicago: Alex Tuch, RW (Min, 18^th)
21. St. Louis: Travis Sanheim, D (Phi, 17^th)
22. Pittsburgh: Ivan Barbashev, C (Stl, 33^rd)
23. Colorado: Nick Schmaltz, C (Chi, 20^th)
24. Vancouver: Michael Bunting, LW (Ari, 117^th)
25. Boston: Marcus Pettersson, D (Ana, 38^th)
26. Montreal: Tony DeAngelo, D (TB, 19^th)
27. San Jose: Kasperi Kapanen, RW (Pit, 22^nd)
28. NY Islanders: Christian Dvorak, C (Ari, 58^th)
29. Los Angeles: Jakub Vrana, LW (Wsh, 13^th)
30. New Jersey: Jacob Middleton, D (LA, 210^th)

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