When the Bruins hit the ice for the third period of Monday night’s Game 5, it was Jeremy Swayman in net, not Tuukka Rask.
Rask had given up four goals on 16 shots through the first two periods. While none of them were truly soft goals, a couple -- specifically two shots that beat him over his glove -- were at least stoppable.
After the game, Bruins coach Bruce Cassidy explained the decision to pull Rask. As it turns, it wasn’t just about performance, as Rask maybe wasn’t completely healthy either.
“There was some maintenance that needed to be done,” Cassidy said. “He wasn’t 100 percent, so we made a decision. That’s the call we had to make between periods. I’ll just say he wasn’t himself, 100 percent. Certainly could have went back in. We made a decision not to put him back in.”
Rask has been battling a lingering upper-body injury (and possibly more) for a few months, dating back to what appeared to be a back injury suffered on March 7. He missed two and a half weeks initially, returned for one game, then missed three more weeks before returning again on April 15.
Since then, Rask has required some extra rest and maintenance between starts, and admitted on The Greg Hill Show on May 28 that his health was still “not as good as I’d want it to be.”
This latest setback or flare-up or whatever it is that happened would seemingly put Rask’s status for Game 6 Wednesday night on Long Island in jeopardy. But when asked if he thought Rask would be ready for Game 6, Cassidy didn’t hesitate.
“I assume he will,” Cassidy said.
Perhaps this is reading into things too much, but it seems worth noting that that question and answer were about whether Rask would be ready, and not specifically about whether he would start.
Swayman stopped a breakaway bid from Jordan Eberle on the first shot he faced Monday night, but then got beat by a point-blank Brock Nelson shot on the second. He only faced one more shot the rest of the game as the Bruins' comeback bid came up short in a 5-4 loss.
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