With Tuukka Rask opting out of the NHL playoffs Saturday morning, mere hours before Game 3 of the Bruins' first-round series against the Hurricanes, there are very real questions about whether he has played his last game as a Bruin.
Rask has one year left on his contract. While the Bruins could look to trade him, it's unclear how teams around the league might value him right now. On the one hand, he had another very strong regular season. On the other, there are now further questions about his dependability.
Kevin Paul Dupont wrote in The Boston Globe that he expects the Bruins to try to move on from Rask, saying it's "time for both sides to shake hands, recall the many good memories, and move on to situations that are better, more predictable fits for both." Of course, Rask could also just decide to retire.
According to WEEI's Dale Arnold, though, Rask's teammates and those in the Bruins organization aren't looking at this as a "time to move on" situation. Everyone around the team that we have heard from publicly has offered nothing but their full support for Rask, and Arnold says that how they feel privately is the same as what they're saying publicly.
"I can tell you that talking with people within the bubble," Arnold said Monday on Dale and Keefe, "it is unanimous the players on the team, the coaches on the team do not feel the way Kevin Paul Dupont expressed it in the Globe today, which is basically Tuukka's time here is done. They don't think that.
"I want to make sure I stress that publicly I knew that's what they were going to say," Arnold added. "I can tell you privately, what you're hearing publicly is what they also feel privately. This is not just, 'OK say we're fine with him even though, dammit, he pisses us off.'"
Arnold exchanged text messages with Rask on Saturday and reported that Rask told him he had a family emergency, but that everything is fine now.
None of that stopped cohost Rich Keefe from saying that, regardless of what the reason is or how his teammates feel, he hopes this is in fact the end of Rask's time in Boston.
"I just think everything sort of points to him just quitting," Keefe said. "Tuukka was already kind of one foot out anyway. I just think they had this opportunity to opt out prior to ... Tuukka Rask has an opportunity, this long layoff, this is the NHL plan, is everybody on board? Everybody but Steven Kampfer, and everybody is fine with it. You don't, two hours before Game 3 of a playoff series, say, 'I'm done.' And then there like, 'Hey Bruce (Cassidy), what was that conversation like?' And he's like, 'Oh I didn't talk to him.' He didn't even talk to the coach about it? You can't trust the guy. I would never want him back."
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