BOSTON -- So the Bruins goaltending situation got a little more muddled Thursday night.
Jaroslav Halak had his first bad outing in a Bruins uniform before getting pulled in the second period, and Tuukka Rask wasn’t much better in an all-around terrible 8-5 loss to the Vancouver Canucks at TD Garden.
The goalies were the first thing out of the chute when coach Bruce Cassidy was asked following the game what led into the defensively challenged defeat.
“Goaltending, obviously, neither guy was on their game,” said Cassidy. “So that’s a problem. It’s going to happen.”
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Clearly there were more issues: The Bruins penalty kill had trouble blocking wrist shots from the point and there were some real problems with the management of pucks around Boston’s defensive blue line. But Halak’s five goals allowed on 19 shots were an indication that he wasn’t seeing the puck very well and Rask gave up another three goals on 14 shots, including a dreadful short-handed score where botched an attempt to play the puck.
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“I didn’t think he was playing well, to be honest with you,” Cassidy said of Halak, who is still in the NHL’s top 5 goalie lists with his 1.96 goals against average and .936 save percentage. “He wasn’t tracking pucks well. He’s been very good for us.
"Tuukka hasn’t had a lot of work. [It was] an opportunity for him to go and work on his game. Didn’t work out the way we’d like to. That’s that. I don’t have a better answer for you. It’s that simple. [Rask] didn’t make a lot of stops. He wasn’t asked to make a lot of stops. It was more sometimes you do that to turn the momentum of the game. I didn’t think we were out of it, so part of me . . . halfway through the third . . . I second-guessed myself. Maybe [Halak] could’ve found his game, could’ve battled back.
“But it’s neither here nor there now. I don’t think . . . either goalie [would say] they were on [their game] and that’s that. We score five goals and usually that’s enough to win. It’s going to happen from time to time. Halak’s been outstanding and Tuukka’s been solid. He’s had a couple games that weren’t terrific by his standards, but it happened tonight. It snowballed on both of them.”
The dual performances now leaves Cassidy with a tough choice as to what to do for this weekend with Atlantic Division rival Toronto coming up on Saturday, and then Vegas taking a visit on Sunday in back-to-back home games. The hunch is that Cassidy will still go with Halak on Saturday based on his comments about having second thoughts pulling him, and that would leave Rask to find his game against the Golden Knights on Sunday.
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The rest was up to the Bruins goaltenders to brush off the first game this season were both netminders were pretty lackluster.
“I was just trying to keep it under 10 [goals allowed] -- that’s what I was worried about," said Rask, who now has a 3.05 goals against average and a .901 save percentage. "But yeah, you know, like I said, a loss is a loss, it doesn’t really matter at the end of the day. It was kind of a crazy game both ways. A lot of goals scored and at the end it looked like everyone was napping in the crowd. It was just one of those games where there wasn’t a whole lot of action on either end -- low shots and all of a sudden it’s 5-3, 8-5 whatever.
"Yeah, weird game. But that’s entertainment and we’re just providing it.”
While the entertainment value was certainly there, the Bruins will settle for boring, predictable puck-stopping from their goaltenders the next time out.
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