Kalman: Bruins' Rask Ramps Up Play At Right Time To Beat Penguins
By Matt Kalman, CBS Boston
BOSTON (CBS) - Despite the lopsided nature of the 5-1 score, the Bruins weren't patting themselves on the back after they defeated the Pittsburgh Penguins at TD Garden on Wednesday.
Defenseman Adam McQuaid said the win against the Penguins was one of the Bruins' better home efforts in a while, but when your team has won just once in its prior five home games, the bar is pretty low when measuring performances.
"We still had our moments and Tuukka [Rask] was big for us at times but overall I think it was a better effort," said McQuaid, who had an assist and teamed up with Zdeno Chara to keep star center Sidney Crosby and linemates Patric Hornqvist and Chris Kunitz off the scoreboard.
Barring a major trade or an epic improvement by a couple of the Bruins' current defensemen, there are going to be many nights when the shots and scoring chances against will be plentiful. The only chance the Bruins will have to prevail will be impenetrable games from Rask, who proved Wednesday he's ready for the stretch run, which has already begun in the parity-filled Eastern Conference playoff race.
Rask finished with a season-high 41 saves, including 27 through the first two periods, in the victory against Pittsburgh that lifted the Bruins into third place in the Atlantic Division. The only Penguins goal went off a skate blade on a rebound of a shot on the rush.
Otherwise, Rask impersonated a wall at the best possible time for the Bruins. In trying to break their two-game home losing streak, the Bruins could not afford to fall behind. Rask made sure they didn't.
But as always he wanted to share credit with his teammates.
"They had a lot of chances. But we took their rebound chances away," said Rask, who is now 23-17-5 with a 2.56 goals-against average and .917 save percentage this season. "We knew they were going to look for backdoor plays a lot. They try to get a lot there and find the guy in the backdoor; we took care of those. And the result is a pretty good defensive effort."
Pretty good is the best the Bruins can do right now on their back end. And even that takes a lot of hard work and help from the forwards to cleanly get the puck out of the defensive zone. The Bruins really weren't at that "pretty good" level until the third period, when they stuck to their structure and the Penguins began to take chances. Goals by Jimmy Hayes, Landon Ferraro (on a breakaway) and Brad Marchand made the Penguins pay for their risks and put the score out of reach.
This was the second straight start where Rask stymied a talent-laden offense. Although he allowed three goals against Dallas last Saturday, he wasn't at fault for any of them. And had he not made several clutch saves to keep the Bruins in the game they wouldn't have been able to pull off their riveting comeback from 3-1 down to pull out a 7-3 win.
The Bruins could've easily fallen into another 3-1 hole or worse against the Penguins. But Rask stood tall. The Bruins slowed Crosby's line to an extent, but even without Evgeni Malkin in the lineup the Penguins were able to threaten the Bruins offensively with secondary players. Rask proved that he has no intention of being the reason the Bruins fail to make the playoffs for a second straight season and he might be the reason they have a chance at home-ice advantage and a victorious round.
He says he feels responsible to make sure the Bruins, as discombobulated as they sometimes are in front of him, have a chance to win every night.
"I always do, but you know what, I've felt good ever since that little tough start of the season," Rask said. "Obviously we had some tough games, let in a lot of goals. But I've felt good. Sometimes you have those nights that you let in five goals and you look back and there's nothing you can really do differently. It's just a matter of us really tightening up as a team and helping everybody out."
Nights like Wednesday make you scoff at the notion the Bruins should trade Rask. He makes a lot of money ($7 million) but most of the season he earns it. He's one of the elite goaltenders in the League. When you're undergoing a reboot like the Bruins, you don't want to trust your goaltending to just any run-of-the-mill pad wearer. Elite goaltending covers up mistakes, facilitates development of young skaters and sometimes steals wins.
The victory against Pittsburgh was earned, not stolen, but it wouldn't have been possible without Rask. Heading into the trade deadline on Monday, general manager Don Sweeney knows he doesn't have to worry about goaltending. And when the season ends and the Bruins are either in or out of the postseason, we know Rask won't be to blame but he'll be a major reason why they got back in the postseason, even if there are many more nights like Wednesday.
Matt Kalman covers the Bruins for CBSBoston.com and also contributes to NHL.com and several other media outlets. Follow him on Twitter @TheBruinsBlog.