Rask battles slow start
On the list of concerns with this Bruins team, goaltending just might be at the bottom. All you had to do was watch how difficult it was for the thoroughly superior B’s to grind out an angst-ridden 2-1 overtime victory over the Dallas Stars last night to know that the top three issues facing this team are goalscoring, goalscoring and goalscoring.y
But when your $7 million goalie who is supposed to be your starter is struggling like Tuukka Rask has been for the second autumn in a row, and he allows a weak shorthanded goal like he did to the Stars’ Radek Faksa just 3:51 into the game, the grumbles and groans emanating from the Garden crowd were justified.
It was a softy similar to the one he allowed against the Montreal Canadiens in his last start a week and half ago, which pretty much guaranteed that his surging “backup” Jaroslav Halak would get the next couple of starts.
But that’s where the similarities end. In that game against the Habs, the B’s allowed the next goal and were never really in it. Last night at the Garden, Rask’s teammates picked him up right away with a David Pastrnak power-play goal to tie the game and, though it took a while for him to see more action, Rask contributed with a few big saves down the stretch to record the victory.
Rask has won a Vezina Trophy. He has played in the Stanley Cup Finals. But even the best players can beset by a crisis of confidence, even in November. That may be an overly dramatic description of where the goalie’s head was at, but make no mistake, his frame of mind would not have been helped if he didn’t help pull out the victory, especially with how hard his teammates worked for it.
“He needs wins. He’s a goalie. That’s what he gets judged on,” said coach Bruce Cassidy. “The first goal is an outside shot from a bad angle. I don’t know if Torey (Krug) redirected it but good for the guys to pick him up on the power play. We win as a team and we lose as a team. We’ve always felt that. And after that, he settled in. He played well. He made a nice stop in overtime, so it was a good day for him to sort of get his bearings again. He hadn’t played in a while. I don’t know how used to it he is, not playing much. But at the end of the day, yes, he needed the win and he got it, so hopefully it leads to better things for him the next time he’s in.”
Rask stopped 24-of-25 shots and, though the B’s played a very good defensive game in front of him, he did have to make some good stops, especially in the third period. He made a sneaky good save on a long-range Tyler Seguin shot that was deflected, and he kept the game even when Krug was tagged with a questionable boarding call.
And perhaps as a tribute to his former backup Anton Khudobin, a noted tightrope walker who was playing at the other end of the ice for the Stars, Rask had to bail his own butt out when he gloved a puck and then handed it right to Valeri Nichushkin for a Grade A scoring chance that he gloved. He would also make a good stop on Jamie Benn in overtime before Brad Marchand won it on a 5-on-3 power-play.
It was a good game from which to build for Rask, but he knows he may have to wait to do that. Halak deserves to play right now.
“Jaro’s played unbelievable s that’s how it goes. If you have a hot goalie like that, you get to let him play. I totally get it,” said Rask. “It hasn’t affected me mentally that much. You just try to practice hard and kind of feel that rhythm and feel the puck in practices. And when you’re playing, you try to be slid and get the wins. It’s going o be busy this week, so I think both of us will see lots of action.”
Rask is confident Cassidy won’t put him in storage, no matter how well Halak plays.
And until he get his game to where he wants it to be, Rask will keep waging the good fight between his ears.
“I think there’s some kind of clutch in your head that switches where you say ‘Screw this,’ try to have fun and let the puck hit you,” said Rask. “A lot of goaltending is mental. Everyone in the league has the skills to play at a high level, but a lot of times, you either win or lose the battle inside your head. I’m trying to win it.”