Rask fightin’ mad
Goalie fires up B’s with scrappy play
The Bruins did not play a playoff game against the Tampa Bay Lightning last night at the Garden. It only felt that way.
It was raucous to start and a little tense at the end. In between, there was a whole lot of raw emotion and a level of courage that spring brings out in hockey players.
David Pastrnak — David Pastrnak! — dropped the gloves with Dan Girardi after the winger didn’t like a hit on Patrice Bergeron in the third period. He posted a Gordie Howe hat trick. Noel Acciari threw himself in front of a pair of slappers on a second-period power play that preserved a narrow Bruins lead. At one point in the third period, a linesman had to go into the Tampa bench to pry David Backes away from Chris Kunitz and a few more Bolts.
But in the B’s 4-2 victory over the Lightning that catapulted them into first place in the Eastern Conference, there may not have been anyone more emotionally engaged than their most important player — Tuukka Rask.
It was clear throughout the night that the Bolts wanted to get in Rask’s face. They were called for an early interference penalty and later had a goal taken off the board for goalie interference. But when Cory Conacher shoved Brandon Carlo into Rask at 11:16 of the second period, the usually mild-mannered Finn went berserk.
Once untangled, Rask went right at Conacher and fed him a few shots with his blocker before a host of players, including Carlo and Cedric Paquette jumped in. The B’s ended up with a power play in a 2-1 game. But more importantly, a point was made loudly by Rask.
That kind of show of emotion has not been seen from a Bruins goalie since Tim Thomas was patrolling the crease, and it certainly juiced the guys who are on his side.
“It’s not something you want to see every night and it doesn’t happen every night for obvious reasons, but, yeah, you want to see a little fire, some urgency,” said coach Bruce Cassidy. “He’s defending his territory without being reckless, I don’t think. He just did what he had to do in that situation, then calmed down and played.”
It wasn’t a perfect night for Rask, who made 26 saves, including some very tough ones in the second and third periods. He let in a bad goal in the third period when Victor Hedman sneaked a shot between Rask’s glove arm and body to cut the B’s lead to 3-2, a tally that Rask cannot afford to allow in the postseason. But even then, his body language — he was clearly mad at himself — was encouraging. He responded by making a terrific save on Ryan McDonagh from the slot shortly after the softy and he wouldn’t be beaten again.
But it was the skirmish that people will remember.
“It gets guys going, especially guys who sometimes don’t have a pulse on the bench,” said Torey Krug. “It gets them engaged in the game and all of a sudden you’re standing on the bench wondering what’s going on and you see one of your superstar players getting going on the ice. You think it’s something you’d never see. He stood up for himself and obviously guys will jump in if they have to. It was fun.”
Rask said he was simply protecting his territory — and his body — heading into what could be a long stretch. He said it was the accumulation of hits that lit the fuse.
“The first period, someone fell (Alex Killorn) on my knee there,” said Rask. “It just felt to me that I don’t think my own D’s were jumping on me and I felt like they were pushing. I just had to let them know that I’m there. It happened twice so I just jumped in there, threw a couple of punches and that’s it.”
His young teammate involved in the fracas with him got a kick out of it.
“It was pretty funny, honestly,” said Carlo. “He got (Conacher) pretty good, too. His helmet was about on sideways when Tuukka hit him with his blocker. I didn’t want (Conacher) hitting him back so I stood up as fast as I could and tried to grab him. But didn’t look like he needed much help there.”
The way things look today, the Bruins have as good a chance at winning the Stanley Cup as anybody. When healthy, they’re skilled, physical, explosive on offense, stingy on defense. A subpar performance from a goaltender, however, can undo the best of teams. But Rask’s fire last night showed that he’s ready to do battle — even if he doesn’t plan on doing so in that manner very often.
Said Rask with a grin: “I have to go have a couple beers now just to cool off.”