The noise started from the rafters shortly after another goal, this one an empty-netter from Charlie Coyle that made it 4-1 with 2:34 remaining, making Don Sweeney look brilliant for his deft depth moves this season.
Tuu-kka. Tuu-kka. Tuu-kka.
Sing that song. Serenade the masked man. Tuesday night —another Game 7 between the Maple Leafs and the Bruins — belonged to Tuukka Rask: aka, the player most people love to hate on in this town. He was everything the Bruins needed and more.
The Maple Leafs had 33 shots and Rask turned away 32. His save percentage of .970 was his highest in a postseason game since he posted .971 in a 4-1 Game 2 victory over the Red Wings.
That was five years and 3 days — or 1,819 days — ago.
And a span of 35 postseason starts.
Sure, Rask gets a lot of heat in this town. But some it, as the above stat illustrates, is deserved, especially when said goaltender is making $7 million per season. (He'll celebrate the five-year anniversary of his last postseason shutout on May 8 – a 1-0, Game 4 win at Montreal ... in case he wanted to break another streak next round against Columbus.)
But if Rask was ever going to deliver like the Rask of old, this was the time. With an aging core and not much young talent in the pipeline — not to mention the Lightning, Penguins, Predators and Flames all being ousted, and with the Capitals in a Game 7 tonight — the Bruins were staring at the very real possibility that this was the last, great chance for this group to make another Cup run. And Rask did that on Tuesday night, highlighted by him going 7-for-7 on high-danger area chances against the Leafs (Toronto had nine high-danger shots total).
"I don’t think you win any Game 7 (without a strong goaltending performance) ... generally speaking, you need your goaltender to hold you in there, and I thought Tuukka was outstanding," said Bruce Cassidy. "I think tonight he was our best player. I thought we had a lot of guys play well, but he was our best player."
If Bruins fans needed any indication that their goaltender was ready for this spot, they got it less than four minutes in when Auston Matthews, of all people, was left free in the slot to rip a shot that Rask admitted he didn't even see.
https://twitter.com/emarinofsky/status/1120829610390896640
"The first one on Matthews kind of surprised me a bit, but it was lucky I had the five-hole covered," Rask said. "He got it off in a hurry, I didn’t even see the release, so I got the five-hole covered and made a save."
There were more heroics in the second period. While his teammates seemed to relax starting the period with a two-goal advantage and then proceeded to get outshot 13-8, Rask saved the Bruins again — especially during an especially dangerous power play where the Leafs peppered Rask with shots.
You could say Rask kept the Bruins in the game during the middle stanza.
"No, that’s not overstating it. I think that’s accurate," Cassidy said. "In the second period, we broke down. We had a tough time moving the puck out of our zone. He was there for us. He made the stops he needed to and more."
Said Brandon Carlo: "Phenomenal, especially in the second period. We had a couple breakdowns there and he did a phenomenal job of helping us out and getting us out of that situation. But, I wouldn’t expect anything different from him. He comes to play every night, especially in the playoffs I’ve seen, you know, he’s excited to play and does a great job."
Wednesday will likely be a day for the told-you-so crowd to bask in the brilliance of Rask's performance. They'll look down their noses on anyone who dared to worry about Rask.
But the truth of the matter is that criticism of Rask was warranted — unless you want to twist yourself in a pretzel debating the quality of the defensemen in front of him over the years (and I'm sure some will). It's a fact that Rask hasn't played nearly to this level in the postseason in years — the stats bear that out:
- Rask posted five postseason shutouts combined in 2012-13 and 2013-14. He hasn't had one since.
- His .928 save percentage this postseason is his highest since '13-14.
- His 2.31 goals-against average this postseason is his third-highest mark in his six tours of duty.
- And his quality start percentage of .714 is second only to his amazing .773 in '12-13.