Bruins’ goalie opens up about injury, his future
Rask opens up about torn labrum and his future on or off the ice
For those of you clamoring for the Bruins to move on from goaltender Tuukka Rask, you will get at least a test drive of what that life will be like at the start of next season. And who knows, maybe that full wish will come true.
In his season-ending Zoom call with reporters on Friday, Rask revealed that he has been playing with a torn labrum in his right hip that will require surgery sometime in the next month. Rask said he won’t be ready to play again until January or February. Whether or not that forces management to go out and get an experienced goalie on the free-agent or trade markets, that bit of news would appear to open up the door for Jeremy Swayman to get a head start on winning the starting job .
ask reiterated thatR he doesn’t want to ever don another team’s hockey jersey, and does hope to agree to a contract with the B’s at some point.
“Like I’ve said before, I’m not going to play for anybody else but the Bruins. This is our home. We have three kids. The kids enjoy it here. They have friends in school,” said Rask. “At this point in my life and career, I don’t see any reason to go anywhere else, especially with the health I’m looking at now, with the recovery time of five or six months. Hopefully it works out that I recover well and we can talk about contracts when the time is right for that.”
But when asked how long he expects to play, Rask showed just how loaded with uncertainty his current situation is.
“Who knows? I think first and foremost, I’m trying to get this hip fixed and start the recovery and we’ll see how I feel after,” said the 34-year-old Rask. “You never know how it goes. They may find when they open the hip it’s worse than expected. So it’s tough to give you an answer now. If everything goes well and I start to feel great and I come back and play, feel awesome, then who knows how long. It could also be the end of it. Maybe I don’t recover well and I just can’t play. Who knows?”
Rask said he first felt a “pop” in the hip when he was playing in the bubble play
offs against Carolina last year. It wasn’t excruciating, he said, but he felt something was not right. With the butterfly style that most goalies employ today, it is almost inevitable that at some point in their careers they develop some kind of hip issue.
In fact, his predecessor Tim Thomas underwent hip surgery when he was 36 years old in 2010, then returned to win the Stanley Cup and Conn Smythe Trophy the next season.
Rask missed five weeks this season, with one aborted attempt to return in the middle, when issues started to snowball.
“It was hard because I had it all year. We got to manage my work load all during the season so you don’t have to play a lot of games in a row. Then obviously in the playoffs, you play every other night. It’s hard, but it never got to the point to where I couldn’t play,” said Rask. “The reason why I missed time during the season was because I was compensating that hip injury with my other muscles and my back seized up and I could barely walk for a week so that’s why I missed the time. The hip itself was the issue. It just locks up on me every once in a while. That’s why you’d see me kind of limping out there. But it was not that fun. It’s not that easy playing with a labrum tear for a goalie. But like I said a couple of days ago, I thought our training staff did a great job maintaining it and keeping me up.”
That, of course, begs the question of whether he should have been playing at all over Swayman at that point, but that will be directed at management in the coming days. It should be noted, however, that Thomas did not play in the 2010 playoffs, with the former coaching staff and management (of which GM Don Sweeney was a part) going with a skinny rookie by the name of
Tuukka Rask. Things started off well, with the B’s winning a series and then building a 3- 0 series lead in the second one over the Flyers. Rask, having never been through the rigors of an NHL season, wilted along with a banged-up team in front of him.
The decision may not have been as easy as some may think. Perhaps there was a happier medium to be found, but we’ll never know now.
While Rask does not have a contract in hand, he said he spoke with Sweeney and the coaching
staff and “we mapped out a plan.” He wants to be there to support Swayman while he recuperates.
“That’s what I’ve been talking about to Sweens and the coaching staff, too,” said Rask. “I’ve played enough hockey and it’s getting to the point that I could be helpful to these young guys. I want to do that. Who knows what the goaltending situation is going to look like when the season starts, but I’m definitely up for helping any way I can. I’ve been through it as a young guy. You were praising me the first few
weeks, months and then a couple of years later, it might turn. So that’s why I’m here. So when that happens to him, I can be helpful and tell him to block the media out.”
Rask said that last part with his usual wry smile, but few athletes in Boston have handled being a lightning rod like the thin Finn.
“There’s a reason I don’t read social media or the news, really. Because when you get caught up in that, it might be mentally tough. It really doesn’t affect me
because I don’t hear that noise,” said Rask. “People have opinions, they have the right to say whatever they want to say, as long as it’s in some kind of limit and I respect that. It doesn’t affect my game and I feel like every time I go out on the town or wherever, people have been really supportive. It’s not like I go to the grocery store and people are throwing eggs at me and yelling at me. That might suck. People talk on social media, whatever topic, it seems like everyone has an opinion. It doesn’t bother me.”