Tuukka Rask picks a great time to put together his best start of season taken at BSJ Headquarters (Bruins)

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Bruins

Tuukka Rask picks a great time to put together his best start of season

By Conor Ryan

Nov 17, 2018 • 12:48 am

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Any hopes of the Bruins easing Tuukka Rask back into the lineup quickly went to wayside given what transpired over the past 36 hours.

Already without a number of their regulars on their blue line in Charlie McAvoy, Brandon Carlo, Kevan Miller, the B’s D corps devolved from a patchwork unit into a bizarro AHL crossover flick over the span of a single game.

Wednesday’s 6-3 loss to the Avalanche brought with it another pair of injuries — with Zdeno Chara now out for an indefinite amount of time due to an apparent knee injury and John Moore day to day with a lower-body injury.

And so, with a D corps featuring three rookies skating in front of him, Rask returned to the crease for the first time since taking a leave of absence to attend to a personal matter — amounting to a span of eight days between outings.

No pressure, right?

And while Boston’s undersized and inexperienced defense performed admirably on the road against a talented Stars club, it was a shining start in net from Rask — his best in months — that paved the way for Boston to steal a point against Dallas on Friday.



While the Stars didn’t pepper the Bruins net at the same rate as other opponents this season such as Carolina (44 SOG on 10/30), Nashville (40 SOG on Nov. 3) and Toronto (41 SOG on Nov. 10), they certainly made the most of their chances against a Bruins’ defense prone to the occasional slip up — considering half of the blue line had a combined NHL service time of seven games.

Rask might have been slow out of the gate in terms of rebound control — with Torey Krug saving his skin with a stick save in the first minute of play — but Boston’s netminder quickly settled into a groove, even as more and more shots came in from right on the doorstep.




In total, the Stars attempted 69 shots over 61:34 — of which 36 of those attempts were turned aside by Rask.


On a night in which puck possession was decidedly in Dallas’ favor, Boston couldn’t get much from its usual safety net in the Bergeron line — with the team’s go-to pivot rendered rudderless thanks to a banged-up Bergeron and a poor showing from both
Brad Marchand
and
David Pastrnak.


In fact, before
Bruce Cassidy
opted to slot
Anders Bjork
up at the right wing for later part of the third period, the Stars out-attempted Boston by a stark 10-0 margin in the over six minutes of five-on-five TOI that Marchand and Pastrnak were out on the ice together.




Of the Stars’ 34 recorded scoring chances on the night — 16 of them were in the “high danger” category, with shots coming in Grade-A territory in and around the B’s net.






(Heatmap courtesy of Natural Stat Trick)

And of those high-danger chances, Rask turned aside all but one — the lone blemish coming off of the deciding goal from Jason Dickinson in overtime, with the tally coming off the third rebound of the sequence following a pair of back-to-back stops against Mattias Janmark.

It will be interesting to see how Cassidy manages the goaltending rotation going forward — with Jaroslav Halak likely set to get the nod for the tail end of the back-to-back against Arizona Saturday night.

But on a night in which the Bruins desperately needed a strong showing in net, Rask was there to answer the call.

“I didn’t know what to expect,” Cassidy said. “Talked about that this morning. Hasn’t played in a while. I thought he’d be good. He wants to bounce back, prove to himself and his teammates that he’s ready to go and he was. He was terrific. Too bad we couldn’t score a goal for him. Deep down, you just don’t know when a guy hasn’t played in a while if there’s going to be that rust. But he was excellent and like I said, deserved a better fate.”

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