Boston Bruins Tuukka Rask Unfazed By Roster Shake-Up
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The Boston Bruins will be entering the 2015-16 season with a much different roster than the one they started with for the 2014-15 season. With the subtractions of Milan Lucic, Dougie Hamilton, Gregory Campbell, Daniel Paille, Reilly Smith, and other prospects, the Bruins will be starting a new chapter in 2016. The changes are drastic, but also seem necessary to potentially spark a rebound season for the Bruins who missed the playoffs for the first time since the 2006-07 season. Offseason trades, signings and promotions all played major roles in replenishing the players lost, and while these changes could seem daunting to the Bruins roster, franchise goaltender Tuukka Rask seems to think that changes like this were expected.
Earlier in the week in a question and answer period with Sportsnet, Tuukka Rask discussed the roster shakeup that led to a lot of new faces on the Bruins, and in turn, much fewer returning ones. “It was bound to happen,” Rask said. “Everybody expected us to make some changes. It’s sad to see Looch (Milan Lucic) gone and Soupy (Gregory Campbell) gone and a bunch of other people. These things happen nowadays. Teams change, and you have to deal with it. We’re going to have a great team out there, so it’s exciting.”
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It’s interesting that long-time Bruins in Lucic and Campbell were specified by name, but some other notable subtractions from the team like Reilly Smith and Dougie Hamilton weren’t mentioned. The latter two have both been speculated to have been more secluded in the locker room, and Tuukka Rask‘s omitting their names could add fuel to the fire. If that wasn’t enough, Rask had a direct chance to reference Dougie Hamilton when his name was mentioned, and again, Hamilton appeared to be merely an afterthought.
When asked if the team had left him out to dry after trading away two of the top defensemen on the roster over the last two seasons in Dougie Hamilton and Johnny Boychuk, Rask didn’t seem to think so. “Not really,” he said. “Losing Johnny was a big blow. I don’t think we realized how big he was until we saw him gone. He was with us until training camp. The trade happened last second. It was really frustrating for all of us, and everybody knows how good of a player he is now. We’ve got so many good young D’s coming up that I think we’ll be set.” Rask isn’t wrong about the Bruins having a lot of good, young defensemen in the system. With players like Joe Morrow, Zach Trotman, Colin Miller, Linus Arnesson, Jakub Zboril, and Jeremy Lauzon, among others, in the Bruins system, the future looks bright on the blue line.
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