Boston Bruins: You Have to Admit, He Was Good

If the Stanley Cup playoffs are in progress and the Boston Bruins are still alive, that can mean only one thing, it’s Tuukka Rask bashing time.

The veteran Bruins netminder is an easy target when the Black and Gold lose, but when they win, you don’t hear much about him. Coming off of eliminating the Washington Capitals in five games in the first round, one look at the 34-year-olds stats in those five games shows that he was on top of his game.

Rask, who is closing in on 100 career playoff victories with 98 heading into the Bruins second-round series, made 29 saves or more in four of the five games. His only loss in the series was in Game 1 when Washington forward Nic Dowd redirected a slap shot from the point by Rask for a 3-2 overtime victory.

For the series, Rask stopped 159 of the 169 Capitals shots on the net, which included a series-high 40 in the series-clinching Game 5 victory at Capital One Arena. He had to make only 19 saves in a 4-1 Game 4 victory that gave the Bruins a commanding 3-1 series lead on Friday night.

A deeper look into Rask’s stats shows he finished the Washington series with a 1.88 goals-against average (GAA) and had a .941 save percentage (SV%). Not too bad after a Game 1 loss that had people calling for rookie Jeremy Swayman to replace Rask between the pipes in the series.

The Boston defense also did their part to help out Rask. Despite losing Jeremy Lauzon and Kevan Miller to injuries in the series, the Black and Gold’s blueliners did a nice job of allowing him to see the puck as much a possible making some of the saves easier. Rask also did a nice job of not leaving a lot of rebounds.

With Boston finishing off the Caps in five games, Rask and his teammates get some much-needed rest before their second-round series starts against either the New York Islanders to Pittsburgh Penguins. New York holds a 3-2 series lead heading into tonight’s Game 6.