What will the Bruins’ goaltending situation look like next season? That is certainly one of the most important questions general manager Don Sweeney and company will have to answer this offseason.
Tuukka Rask has been Boston’s clear No. 1 goalie for the last nine years, but he is a 34-year-old unrestricted free agent who is set to undergo surgery on a torn labrum in his hip that will force him to miss probably at least the first three months of the 2021-22 season.
The Bruins must decide if they want to bring Rask back knowing he’ll miss that much time. Rask made it clear on Friday that he’d like to continue playing for the Bruins if everything goes well with the surgery.
If the Bruins do plan to bring Rask back, they’ll have to decide if they’re comfortable rolling with youngsters Jeremy Swayman and Dan Vladar until Rask is ready to return, or if they need to bring in another goalie, likely via free agency.
Meeting with the media via Zoom on Tuesday, Sweeney laid out his options and explained how the Bruins are approaching what he called a “very crucial decision.”
“Obviously Tuukka has to have the offseason surgery and re-evaluate how he’s doing coming out of that,” Sweeney said. “As he mentioned, he’s had a torn labrum. Wants to make sure there are no surprises, and then go from there. He indicated to us that he fully intends to rehab with the intention of coming back.
“We’ll go through our meetings and such and planning going forward and we’ll have to factor in that he could be a part of that. Whether or not that means that the two young guys get the bulk of the work in the early going and see when Tuukka comes, or we go to augment our group and create internal competition and then re-evaluate how Tuukka’s feeling coming out of the rehab process.”
Sweeney said that while the Bruins like their organizational depth in goal with Swayman and Vladar, it would still be a “tall task” for them to carry the load for basically half a season, if not more.
“Time’s going to tell whether or not either one of them is going to be a number one goaltender in the National Hockey League,” Sweeney said. “I think we’re fairly comfortable with where the depth of the organization is at, having those two young players. We’re at the early stages of just learning Tuukka’s decided to have surgery. We have to make a decision if we’re gonna go to market and bring in a player we feel is ahead of those two players, certainly from an experience standpoint, or we do roll the dice a little bit and allow those guys to see if they can handle the workload, which is a tall task.
“Make no mistake about it, it’s a tall task. It’s a small sample size with Jeremy. He played extremely well. Daniel played well in his starts. … Again, we’re still in the early stages. We feel comfortable with the depth, but we have a very crucial decision to make in charting a course for certainly the first part of the season. As to when Tuukka will be ready, we have to forecast that accurately if Tuukka does decide to come back and play, and how he fits in.”
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