Rask in critical retort

Goalie comes up big in win

Talk about fake news. How else to categorize the speculation in recent days by media and fans alike that the skills of Bruins goalie Tuukka Rask had declined and he couldn’t be trusted in an enormously important game, or, the even more insidious, the whispers that he had ducked big games, feigning illness or injury?

What a load of horse manure.

Rask answered critics in just the right way at the Garden last night, where he battled through 60 minutes as the Bruins ground out a vitally important 4-1 victory against the prickly Nashville Predators.

“People have their own opinions,” Rask said. “When you’re not playing that well, they want to jump on you. It’s just the name of the game. It doesn’t bother me. I try to work hard and give us a chance to win every night. That’s all I care about. People can say whatever. I try not to read when we win and I try not to read when we lose. That helps me to stay even-keeled when people say what they say.”

Anyone who has watched the cool and calm Rask build some of the finest stats in NHL history had to be amazed that critics here would question his heart. This chatter began, of course, when Rask missed Game 82 last season because of illness (and the B’s lost to Ottawa, missing the playoffs by one point).

And it bubbled up again when the 30-year-old, with a minor injury, didn’t go to Brooklyn for Saturday’s game against the Islanders with the B’s and Anton Khudobin winning.

There was even suggestions that Khudobin would be the better choice to face Nashville.

Rask doesn’t get the suspicion and lack of trust.

“But what can you do?” he said. “I can’t do anything about it, what people say. I’m not staying home because I want to stay home; I’m not not playing because I don’t want to play. I don’t think any athlete ever does that. Obviously because of what’s happened in the past years — I missed a game — people are going to bring that up and talk about it. That’s just the nature of media people. It’s fine.

“You just try not to read it and stay even-keeled. Play the game the right way.”

Which he did last night, his 24 saves aided greatly by the 24 blocked shots by his teammates.

“Throughout the game we blocked a lot of shots,” Rask said. “That was great to see. We were battling, we had layers, for the most part we were in the right spot defensively in the neutral zone and our own zone.

“That makes a huge difference.”

When the B’s made an emergency call-up yesterday afternoon of goalie Zane McIntyre, the Rask haters assumed that he was going to miss another critical game. In fact, as coach Bruce Cassidy explained postgame, the move was because Khudobin was ill.

“It had nothing to do with Tuukka,” Cassidy said. “He was fine, ready to go. I know there was some speculation of what might have been going on, but there was nothing nefarious there.”

What Cassidy did see was his goaltender battling hard for every puck.

“He really worked hard to find pucks in traffic,” Cassidy said. “They created some good opportunities. I was very pleased with his performance.

“There was a lot of traffic. There were a lot of plays behind the goal line, where you’re going post-to-post (and) it gets a little more strenuous. As opposed to just having great technique, you’ve got to track pucks, you’ve got to find pucks, you’ve got to fight through bodies. He did a real good job of that.

“(There were) a lot of point shots. This is that type of team — (Ryan) Ellis, (P.K.) Subban, (Roman) Josi — they rely on that part of the game and traffic. It was going to be a test for (Rask). I thought he answered the bell in a terrific manner.”

Rask has been answering the bell for the Bruins for many years.

“We have full confidence in Tooks,” center Patrice Bergeron said. “(It’s) the name of the game that (criticism happens) like that sometimes. People are going to second-guess. But for us, that’s irrelevant. We’re all behind him. I knew he was going to bounce back like he did.

“It was an amazing game by him, and he’s an amazing goalie.”