BOSTON – Tuukka Rask lost his final three regular-season starts and the Bruins dropped to the No. 2 seed in the Eastern Conference.
So the goaltender and the Bruins needed to turn things around in the team’s playoff opener against the Toronto Maple Leafs Thursday night at the Garden and they did.
Rask made 26 saves and the Bruins dominated Game 1, 5-1.
The only goal that Rask allowed came with 3:08 remaining in the first period. Zach [...]
BOSTON – Tuukka Rask lost his final three regular-season starts and the Bruins dropped to the No. 2 seed in the Eastern Conference.
So the goaltender and the Bruins needed to turn things around in the team’s playoff opener against the Toronto Maple Leafs Thursday night at the Garden and they did.
Rask made 26 saves and the Bruins dominated Game 1, 5-1.
The only goal that Rask allowed came with 3:08 remaining in the first period. Zach Hyman tied the score, 1-1, when he out-skated David Krejci to the puck, withstood a poke check attempt from Charlie McAvoy and beat Rask with a backhander.
“I stopped more pucks, I guess,” Rask said. “The regular season is over. I don’t even think about that any more really. It’s playoff time now. Just stay focused and battle hard. It’s a different kind of game out there. The intensity picks up and I think you have to match it as a goalie too.”
In his last three regular-season games, the 31-year-old Finn lost 4-0 at Tampa Bay, 3-2 at Florida and 4-2 at home to Florida on Sunday night. A victory in any of those three games would have given the Bruins the No. 1 seed over Tampa Bay and a first-round playoff matchup with New Jersey. Instead, they opened the postseason against the Maple Leafs, who they defeated only once in four regular-season games.
Prior to his late-season slump, Rask had gone 10-0-1 in his previous 11 games and 30-3-3 in his last 36 decisions. Maybe he started another streak on Thursday.
Rask’s .928 save percentage and 2.12 goals against average in his playoff career is commendable, but no matter what he does, some Bruins fans will never be satisfied. Even if his three losses to close the regular season weren’t his fault, his detractors were quick to blame him. Other fans, however, love him. There’s a fine line between yelling, “Tuuuuka,” and “boo.” Most boobirds don’t attend the games, though. They call sports talk shows.
“Fans get on him,” Bruins rookie Jake DeBrusk said, “but we weren’t playing very well in front of him. I think that was the biggest thing. I think in the game in Tampa that we lost, he was our best player. Fans still got on him, but that’s just hockey. That’s the way it is, but at the same time we’re very confident when he’s in the net. We saw sometimes tonight where there were pucks around the crease and it looked like they had three or four whacks at it and it didn’t go in. That’s encouraging to see on the bench. We know he’s a battler. We’re just trying to limit the number of chances, the grade As and we’ll let them have the ones from the outside.”
Early in the second period, the soldout Garden crowd let Rask know it was behind him by chanting, “Tuukka, Tuukka.”
Rask started only 53 games this season, his fewest since he made 34 starts in the 2012-13 season that was shortened to 48 games by a lockout. The Bruins went on to beat Toronto in the opening round of the playoffs that season, rallying from a 4-1 deficit to win Game 7 in overtime at the Garden. Then they advanced all the way to the Stanley Cup Finals before falling to Chicago in six games. Since then the Bruins have won only one playoff series and they haven’t won any over the last four years. So Bruins coach Bruce Cassidy purposely used backup Anton Khudobin more often this season in order to keep Rask fresher for the playoffs.
This is the fourth year that Rask started the opening game of the playoffs for the Bruins. In each of his first three, he also surrendered only one goal. Last year, he made 26 saves in a 2-1 victory at Ottawa, but the Bruins went on to lose the series in six games. In 2014, he stopped 23 shots in a 1-0 loss to visiting Detroit, but the Bruins took the series, 4-1. In 2013, he made 19 saves in a 4-1 home win over Toronto.
“That’s pretty impressive,” DeBrusk said. “I guess he comes ready to play.”
Rask had started at least 62 games in each of the three seasons immediately before this one. Despite starting fewer games, Rask still became the first Bruins goaltender to win 30 or more games for the fifth time, finishing 34-14-5 with a 2.36 goals against average and a .917 save percentage.
The Maple Leafs must feel regret every time they face Rask. They drafted him with the 21st overall pick in the 2005 NHL Entry Draft, but dealt him to the Bruins for goaltender Andrew Raycroft a year later. Raycroft served as the No. 1 goaltender for the Leafs for only one season and they bought out his contract following his second season in Toronto.
Rask is still the No. 1 goaltender in Boston and he was back on top of his game Thursday.
-- Contact Bill Doyle at william.doyle@telegram.com. Follow him on Twitter @BillDoyle15