How Much Is Tuukka Rask To Blame For Bruins' Struggles?
By Matt Dolloff, CBS Boston
BOSTON (CBS) -- Tuukka Rask didn't do much to change the minds of his detractors on Thursday night.
After keeping the Bruins afloat with a handful of key saves in the first period against the Lightning, the goalie ran out of bailouts in the second and third frames and could not stop the bleeding in a team-wide failure at the Garden.
The Bruins simply looked sloppy and unfocused for much of the game - especially when they coughed up three different leads in the second period, each within a span of 1:35 or less. Rask did his best to hold himself and the team accountable after a bafflingly poor effort by the team to hold their brief leads.
"That's the last thing you need, honestly, and everybody knows that," Rask told reporters after the game "Sometimes those things just happen, but when it happens three times in a game it's inexcusable and it's something we should be better at. Tonight was just a tough night for all of us."
It's hard to place much blame on Rask for the first goal, when the Lightning bore down on him with little resistance and an untouched Brayden Point flipped the puck over his shoulder.
It's also hard to blame Rask for the second goal, when a wide-open Nikita Kucherov (the last guy on the Lightning right now whom you want to leave open) took a cross-ice pass and fired a one-timer past Rask, who suffered a skate mishap in the process.
But the third and fourth goals? You could reasonably file those under the "Could Have Bailed Them Out" department. No, it's not Rask's fault that the Bruins gave up a 4-on-2 rush, but he could have stopped Anton Stralman's bad-angle shot that barely snuck over his shoulder through the tiniest of windows.
And it's also not Rask's fault that Kevan Miller turned the puck over on a poor breakout attempt, but the goalie had a clean look at Jonathan Drouin and should have been able to stop what turned out to be the game-winning goal for the Lightning.
Rask himself was at a loss for words for that one.
"I don't know. Just a bad goal," said Rask.
Rask has garnered plenty of doubters over the past two seasons, especially after tapping out of last year's regular season finale against the Ottawa Senators. There's no doubt that he is as much a part of the Bruins' late-season struggles as anyone. But putting literally everything on Rask's shoulders is terribly short-sighted.
Thursday night was a team-wide systemic breakdown. And so were the last two seasons. The Bruins are bringing back some all-too-familiar feelings, and Rask isn't doing much to change it.
Matt Dolloff is a writer for CBSBostonSports.com. Any opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect that of CBS or 98.5 The Sports Hub. Have a news tip or comment for Matt? Follow him on Twitter @mattdolloff and email him at mdolloff@985thesportshub.com.
