NHL Playoffs: How will Game 1 postponement affect Bruins' plans in net?

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Everybody knew at the start of the NHL’s Return to Play that it would be a Stanley Cup Playoff like no other. We’re already beginning to see that play out.

Certainly, the Bruins enter Wednesday’s morning showdown with the Carolina Hurricanes for Game 1 ready to do battle, and they have the experience, mental strength and poise of a hockey club that’s experienced all the highs and lows that the NHL playoffs have to offer.

But one of their games getting postponed an entire day — and being made up in the morning — due to a playoff game going quintuple overtime is a new one even for the grizzled Bruins.

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Now the Bruins will play back-to-back games against the Hurricanes on Wednesday and Thursday for Games 1 and 2, and another back-to-back next week for Games 5 and 6. In all, they could play six games over the course of nine days, which is a grueling schedule by NHL standards that may be a bigger burden for an older group like the Black and Gold.

It would behoove the Bruins to take care of business quickly if possible against a younger Hurricanes group that might be less impacted by the burdensome schedule. As it is, the Bruins will be more likely to play backup goaltender Jaroslav Halak in at least one of these games given the propensity for No. 1 goalie Tuukka Rask to wear down when his workload gets a little too heavy.

That’s something the B's can’t afford to have happen in the playoffs and something they were considering even before Game 1 was postponed until Wednesday.

“I don’t think we’ve had a goalie, by design, even since [Anton Khudobin] that’s played in a back-to-back. Jaro had to do it one year because Tuukka got hurt last year against Vegas and [another team]. But in general we don’t do it,” said Bruce Cassidy. “We’ll see how it plays out. One of the advantages we felt we had coming out of the pause is that both goalies would be fresh. So we lose a bit of that advantage to the teams that use just one guy.

“Tuukka is starting [Game 1] and he’s looked good the last couple of times in the net. It’s his ball to run with and we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it with the back-to-back.”

The bridge to cross has become much closer for the Bruins and Cassidy sounded like it was going to be a bit more of a read-and-react situation with the goaltending after last night’s game was postponed.

“We’re going to let the game play out first [in Game 1]. The good news is that I’ll call it a day-and-a-half and a little more rest than typical [between Game 1 and Game 2]. There’s no travel involved. It may depend on the workload of Tuukka,” said Cassidy. “We’ll obviously discuss it with him. We’re very comfortable with both goaltenders. I’ve heard Rod [Brind’Amour] say it on the other side and they’ve proved it by using both goaltenders against the Rangers. It just happens that both teams use both of their goalies a lot, so it’s a fortunate break for both teams.”

The prediction here reading between Cassidy’s comments: Expect Rask to play on both Wednesday and Thursday and then the Bruins will perhaps look at where the series is at next week with Halak potentially getting a Game 5 look if the B’s are in control of the series. If the Bruins win comfortably in Game 1, there might even be a chance that the B’s come back with Halak on Thursday just to make sure there’s no burnout with Rask early in the postseason.

As Cassidy indicated, the Bruins trust in two goalies that teamed to win the Jennings Trophy this year means there’s little hesitation in going the backup route at some point in a series where the schedule is incredibly dense.  

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