Ryan: Tuukka Rask is back ‘home’ - and Bruins wouldn’t want it any other way

For the first time in quite a while, the atmosphere around TD Garden felt a bit normal on Thursday night. 

Perhaps it was just the sight of disgruntled passengers sprouting up from the depths below North Station — finally freed from the clutches of a delayed, sputtering Green Line train. 

Maybe it was the buzz (or the smell of processed parmesan) emanating off the corner of Causeway and Friend from the reborn Halftime Pizza — packed to the brim with black-and-gold sweaters. 

Most likely, it was the anticipation that has been simmering for weeks regarding Tuukka Rask’s inevitable return to the Boston’s net. 

The TD Garden crowd sure seemed to signal such sentiment on Wednesday — cheering for the Original Six franchise’s all-time winningest goalie while he sat on Boston’s bench during a beatdown of the Habs.

Of course, it’s one thing for such fan revelry to be displayed — most of it a byproduct of a crowd that had gone through its fair share of libations by that time in the third period. But the Bruins players themselves have also harped on the noticeable buzz that Rask’s return has provided.

“You're going to get a boost amongst your group when you have a player of that caliber,” Brad Marchand said. “You know they're going to make an impact, you know they're going to help you win. They're going to make a difference every night that they play. And he's going to do that.”

For Rask himself, some of the circumstances have changed since the last time he served as the man between the pipes for Boston — 218 days ago.

Once accounting for a $7 million cap hit as Boston’s unquestioned franchise netminder, the 34-year-old is now earning just $545,000 in true salary. He’s got a new battery mate in Linus Ullmark, and a slew of host of new teammates in the dressing room. 

But the more things change, the more they stay the same. 

And much to the Bruins’ delight, there wasn’t a whole of surprises in store when it came to Rask’s first taste of game action since last June.

Unencumbered by a labral tear in his hip that stilted some of trademark lateral movement last season, Rask did his part to extend Boston’s winning streak to four straight games on Thursday — stopping 25 of 27 shots in his club’s 3-2 win over the Flyers.

“In terms of just tracking the puck and playing the game and stopping the puck it looked like old Tuukka,” Bruce Cassidy said after the win. “Talking to him after, there were no issues with the surgery.”

For Rask, the fruits of six months of grueling rehab work were evident with each kick save and quick movement he committed to as he reached into his bag of netminding tricks to stymie the Flyers. 

“100 percent,” Rask said when asked about the difference in his play from 2021 to 2022. “Even though it wasn't killing me in every single game last year, it's always in the back of your head that certain movements are limited. And now when you don't have that — like in the first period, I think I had like two or three kick saves to the right. 

"And then in the third, there was that wraparound where I kind of extended. Some stuff like that last year was totally out of the question. So it was great to feel that I have the ability to move both ways.”

His workload might have been light in the early going (Boston led, 2-0, by the time that the Flyers finally landed a shot against him at 9:09 in the first), but Rask kept Boston off the ropes with key stops at key moments in Thursday’s bout — be it a pair of breakaway saves against Joel Farabee and Cam Atkinson or during a frantic 5-on-3 bid for Philly in the closing minutes of regulation. 

Down the other end of the sheet, David Pastrnak ensured that the Bruins would secure two points in Rask’s return — supplementing all of the offense that Boston needed by way of his 11th career hat trick.

For Pastrnak, what stood as his sixth, seventh and eighth goals over a six-game span would seem to be a byproduct of the winger’s own lethal offensive acumen — coupled with puck luck finally falling in his favor. 

But postgame, Cassidy remarked that the sight of Rask in net also lit a fire under many B’s skaters — a thought that Pastrnak concurred with. 

"Oh, man, I was so happy to have him back,” Pastrnak said. “You have no idea. I was ready to leave it all out there for him. I told him — I'm gonna get a hat trick before the game and he didn't believe me. It's really good to have him back.

“He's one of my closest friends and I missed him, obviously. So he was outstanding with the saves he made. Great to have him back. I could be sitting here for 15 minutes talking about him.”