Boston Bruins: Analyzing and grading the 2019-20 season of Jaroslav Halak
By Scott Roche
Grading and analyzing the 2019-20 season of Jaroslav Halak.
During his tenure as Boston Bruins general manager, Don Sweeney has had some swings and misses in signing free agents. He also has had some under the radar moves that have turned out to be good signings.
One of those signing that has worked out for Sweeney was in July of 2018 when he inked veteran goalie Jaroslav Halak to back up Tuukka Rask. In the last two years, there has not been a better backup goalie in the NHL than Halak. Even in a shortened 2019-20 regular season, he was a key piece to the Bruins’ success. The playoffs? That’s a different story that we’ll get to further down.
In 2019-20, Halak played in 31 games, starting 29 and went 18-6-6 with three shutouts. He finished with a 2.39 goals-against average (GAA) and a .919 save percentage (SV%). Halak and Rask combined to win the William M. Jennings Trophy, which is given to the goalies having played at least 25 regular-season games for their team with the fewest goals allowed.
For a majority of his two seasons in Boston, Halak has played in spot duty which allowed Rask more nights off during the season so he is rested and fresher for the playoffs. He was forced into full-time duty in mid-January when Rask was sidelined with a concussion sustained in a game at Columbus.
He ended up losing 3-0 to the Blue Jackets that night, but he won two of the final three games before the all-star break, which included a home-and-home split with the Pittsburgh Penguins and beating the Vegas Golden Knights.
Pressed into more playoff action than the Bruins would have liked in Toronto.
After losing the Bruins’ first Round Robin game to the Philadelphia Flyers, 4-1, Halak went back to his role of back up as Rask played the next four games.
With Boston tied 1-1 with the Carolina Hurricanes in the Eastern Conference Quarterfinals at the Toronto playoff bubble, Halak was pressed into full-time action for the remainder of the postseason when Rask left to attend to a family matter. Halak looked like a younger version of his early playing days against the Hurricanes and won the next three games to advance the Bruins against the Tampa Bay Lightning.
That’s where things went off the rail.
After making 35 saves in a 3-2 Game 1 victory over the Lightning and 36 more in a 4-3 overtime loss in Game 2, he was pulled in favor of Dan Vladar midway through Game 3. He played well in Games 4 and 5, but did not get much offensive support from his teammates as the Bruins were eliminated in five games.
For the playoffs, Halak was 4-5 with a 2.76 GAA and a .902 SV%. Again, pressed into full-time action, he played well, but just did not get enough offensive production from the rest of his teammates for a longer playoff run.
In May, Sweeney re-signed Halak for one-year and $2.25 million to return as Rask’s backup for the 2020-21 season. The Bruins were the only team in last season’s shortened campaign that recorded 100 points and the big reason for that was the play of Halak as their backup goalie.
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The 14-year veteran has been worth every penny that Boston has invested in him as there has not been much of a drop off from their starting goaltending like most teams see when the backup has been between the pipes the last two seasons. That’s good news heading into next season for the Black and Gold.