After a couple days of questions and speculation, Bruce Cassidy and the Bruins have made their decision: Tuukka Rask remains their starting goalie for Wednesday night’s Game 6 at Nassau Coliseum.
Rask has been battling a linger injury (or injuries) all postseason and was pulled between the second and third periods in Monday night’s Game 5 loss, with Jeremy Swayman coming in to replace him.
Rask had allowed four goals on 16 shots through two periods in arguably his worst game of the playoffs so far, and Cassidy had not committed to a Game 6 starter when asked on Tuesday. A day later, the commitment has now been made, with Cassidy announcing his decision during his press conference after morning skate.
"He's ready to go, so that's it," Cassidy said of Rask. "It's that simple. He's our starting goalie and he's healthy and ready to go. Let's hope he's on tonight and we're better in front of him than in Game 5.
"I talked to him yesterday at the rink. He said he felt better coming out of that game than he did during it. Figured he was ready to go, so it's his net. He woke up this morning, got his work in like everyone else."
All eyes will obviously be on Rask to see how he looks, whether his lingering injury appears to hamper his play at all, and, of course, whether he can actually make it through the whole game.
On the whole, Rask has generally been very good this postseason. He is 6-3-0 with a .925 save percentage and 2.20 goals-against average in 10 games. Technically, the Game 5 loss was charged to Swayman since the rookie gave up what proved to be the winning goal.