Rask On Shootouts: 'Gas Them Right Away'
BOSTON (CBS) - There was a playoff feel at the TD Garden on Thursday as the Boston Bruins and the St. Louis Blues played a hard-fought battle for 65 minutes.
But after all of that dramatic buildup, filled with hard hits and tiring shifts for every skater that took the ice, it came down to an anticlimactic
St. Louis came out victorious as Derek Roy beat Tuukka Rask in the fourth round of the shootout, giving the Blues a 3-2 win. Roy's goal prompted the fiery Rask to smash his stick on the ice and let out a few Finish words not suitable for print (at least that's our guess) in the locker room, where he voiced his displeasure for a game like Thursday night's ending in a shootout.
"Well I'd probably be laughing right now if it weren't right? But it sucks when you lose it, I just hate it," said Rask, who stopped 24 of the 26 shots he saw in regulation and overtime. "Especially when you can't stop the puck, I think that's the worst feeling."
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"I thought both teams played pretty good hockey; pretty good systems and good players, doing what their coaches are asking them to and then you decide that in a shootout and obviously it feels good for them and sucks for me, personally," said Rask.
"I'd gas them right away, midseason," Rask said of the shootout. "Take them away. I don't want it."
NHL executives discussed changes to overtime during the regular season at the GM meetings last month. Some want overtime expanded to 10 minutes, with others pushing for five minutes of 3-on-3 following the five minutes of 4-on-4 -- before ultimately heading to a shootout if needed.
Rask would certainly be open to more actual hockey being played.
"Maybe play 10 minutes," he said, adding he likes the idea of a five minute 3-on-3 session following the 4-on-4 overtime. "At least it would be a goal within the game, not just a shootout goal."
Rask wasn't the only member of the Bruins, who are 1-2 this season in shootouts, to voice his displeasure about the NHL's current system. Head coach Claude Julien said his team deserved better after the fight they showed before the shootout.
"It doesn't matter whether we win or lose in the shootout – we all have our opinions on that. I just find when a game is played so well like that, it's a lot easier if both teams could have walked out of here and said, 'You know what, hard fought game,' and both teams would have been happy," he said. "And right now you come out of there more or less feeling like you lost the game and in my mind we played well enough to win. So those are tough – whatever, if you want to call it a loss – to take because I thought we deserved a lot better."
"Shootouts are always frustrating when you lose them," said forward Chris Kelly. "They're fine when you win them. I think the game maybe could have went on all night if they didn't have a shootout. It was a good hockey game by two good and we were just on the short end of it."
The Blues skated off the ice victorious with an extra point in their back pocket on Thursday night, and while you won't hear any complaints from them, Rask closed his evening by saying maybe no one should have gotten that extra point -- just like the old days.
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"If it were to be 2-2, I think both teams would be happy with that," he said. "I think both teams played a good game, but no. We got a point when we could have had two, or both teams could have had one. It's a pretty bad feeling when you're on the losing side."
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