Subban’s up, but B’s still short goalie
When coach Claude Julien drew up his plans for Bruins practice yesterday, things were not supposed to go quite this way at Warrior Ice Arena.
No. 1 goalie Tuukka Rask was still feeling the effects of what Julien has termed “overall soreness” and Zane McIntyre had been returned to Providence, so Malcolm Subban was called up from the AHL club to man the nets with Anton Khudobin, who played quite well in Saturday’s Garden loss to the Montreal Canadiens. Practice was barely underway when Khudobin left the ice with an unspecified injury, perhaps to an arm, and did not return. The injury left Subban as the lone goalie, with a shooter tutor covering the other net.
The situation left plenty of uncertainty over what happens tonight when the Bruins host the Minnesota Wild at the Garden. If Rask remains sidelined — he hasn’t been on the ice since Thursday — and Khudobin joins him on the shelf, the B’s may go with Subban.
And while B’s fans far and wide would be fascinated to see Subban, the 2012 firstround draft pick (24th overall) playing a game at the Garden, his prospects might not appear great. He has just has one very unsuccessful NHL appearance on his résumé, and this season has an 0-3-1 record, 4.50 goalsagainst average and .846 save percentage in four AHL games.
If Julien had a new plan for tonight, he wasn’t saying.
“I’m not trying to hide anything here,” Julien said. “I haven’t made any decisions (about tonight). There’s a lot of things that are up in the air right now. And I’ve just got to juggle those things. Who knows? Hopefully (this) morning I’ve got a better picture. If not, it’ll be a game-time decisions. I wish I had a better answer. But I have no answers to give you right now. Too many things up in the air.
“Right now I have no update (on Khudobin). Same thing with Tuukka. He’s still day-to-day. Nothing has changed. I don’t know what his situation is for (tonight). No decision has been made on him. If (Subban is) going in the goal, he’ll go in the goal. Simple as that.”
Subban probably wasn’t prepared for the swarm of media attention he drew following practice.
“Obviously it’s not the way you want to start the season,” Subban said of his AHL numbers. “It’s not like I feel terrible in net. I’m not lost. It’s just not going my way right now. I feel like the biggest thing right now is just to battle. It’s not the first time I’ve faced adversity and it’s not going to be the last. I don’t feel too down on myself, to be honest.”
The B’s brass still believes Subban has a bright big league future. As he explained it, management wants to see greater consistency.
“The technical side, I’ve been working on since I came to the organization,” Subban said. “I think just being consistent and being able to do it every game is the biggest thing. They know that I’m real athletic; that’s not what I need to work on, as much as my (technique) and being able to be consistent and do it every game.”
Subban may just get the chance to do it on the big stage tonight.
Bruins notes
There was a piece of good news on the injury front. It appears veteran defenseman Adam McQuaid is ready to return from an unknown ailment to play his first game of the season. He was paired throughout practice with Torey Krug. ...
Ryan Spooner was back at center for practice on the third line with left winger Matt Beleskey and right winger Jimmy Hayes.