BOSTON – Bruins goaltender Tuukka Rask will make his third start of the season on Saturday night in the B’s home opener at TD Garden after showing no aftereffects from his dehydration episode at the end of the victory in Las Vegas earlier this week.
Rask stopped 31 of 34 shots in that Tuesday night win, but had to be helped off the ice after a third-period flurry closed out the game with what he attributed afterward to cramping and dehydration in the desert.
Rask practiced with the team on the road, but served as the backup for the Thursday night loss to the Colorado Avalanche that closed out the season-opening, four-game swing through the Western Conference in which the B's won the first three. Now, the Bruins No. 1 goalie will make his third start and his coach confirmed there were no issues other than muscle cramping at the end of the game.
“It was a scheduled start [for Halak vs. Colorado]. [Rask] was dehydrated,” Bruce Cassidy said. Rask won both his starts and has a .937 save percentage thus far. “He had a cramp and that was it. It was a result of dehydration. It’s happened to him in the past, but there was no injury as a result of the dehydration.”
With Rask in between the pipes for the Bruins, they will also make one other change to the lineup with bruising power forward Brett Ritchie back in the lineup against the New Jersey Devils.
Ritchie has a goal and three shots on net in his three appearances this season, but he’s coming off a season-low 8:55 of ice time in the Vegas win followed by serving as a healthy scratch in the loss to Colorado.
Boston Bruins
That means David Backes and Par Lindholm will be the healthy scratches Saturday night and the rest of the lineup will be as follows:
Marchand-Bergeron-Pastrnak
DeBrusk-Krejci-Kuhlman
Heinen-Coyle-Ritchie
Nordstrom-Kuraly-Wagner
Chara-McAvoy
Krug-Carlo
Grzelcyk-Clifton
Rask
Halak
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