The Tuukka Rask haters are pretty quiet after the Bruins' Game 3 double-overtime win Wednesday night, and for good reason.
Rask stopped 35 of the 37 shots he faced, including all nine Capitals shots on goal in a pretty one-sided third period. He also had a well-timed poke check that broke up another quality scoring chance.
While there were a couple deflection goals in Games 1 and 2 that ideally would not have gotten through Rask, he has yet to give up a truly soft goal where he's gotten beat clean on savable shot.
The two goals in Game 3 were an Alex Ovechkin one-time finish from about five feet out and a Nic Dowd redirect from just about the same spot after a brutal Boston turnover on the breakout.
Appearing on The Greg Hill Show Thursday morning, NESN analyst and former Bruins goalie Andrew Raycroft explained what he's seeing from Rask right now.
"He’s very comfortable," Raycroft said. "He’s very comfortable in his game. He’s very comfortable in his approach. Under siege in the third period, just finding pucks through traffic. A couple great saves on [Dmitry] Orlov on point shots, where he’s got two or three layers of a screen in front of him.
"He looked like he was playing a preseason game in double overtime, and that’s what that calmness that everyone talks about that can sometimes look lackadaisical, is what I think solidifies this team at times, especially when things aren’t going well. They know that Tuukka, he’s there, and he’s going to get us into overtime. He’s going to make whatever plays he needs to here in the third while we’re struggling to give us an opportunity in overtime."
There was one moment in the second period when Rask wasn't so calm, though. After Garnet Hathaway crashed into him on a drive to the net and knocked Rask's helmet off, the Bruins netminder responded by throwing several blocker jabs at Hathaway, saying after the game that he was just trying to protect himself.
"Yeah, it was a hell of a move," Raycroft said of the blocker shots. "He’s not really going to do a lot of damage, but it looks real good. He was obviously frustrated with the way that Washington was getting into his crease, getting towards him, and he stood up for himself a little bit."
On the series, Rask has stopped 100 of the 108 shots he's faced for a .926 save percentage and 2.27 goals-against average.
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