Rask ‘terrific' in what might have been last start of regular season

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If Thursday night’s loss to the Florida Panthers was indeed Tuukka Rask’s last appearance in the regular season, it was a positive one for the Bruins goaltender even in defeat. Rask stopped 32-of-35 shots he faced in the 3-2 loss to the Panthers at the BB&T Center, and really wasn’t at fault for any of the goals allowed after a subpar performance in the shutout loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning a couple of days prior. 

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“At this point everybody is fatigued on some level because it’s the end of the year, but you just go out there, have a game plan, execute it and try to play winning hockey,” said Rask. “Every year you say that if you clinch the playoffs, then you don’t want to go into the playoffs limping and trying to find your game. You want to go in with your game in full stride. 

“That’s something we have to fix in the final two games, just playing hard hockey and our style of hockey. We’ve been saying all year we have to play our style of hockey no matter who we play, and we’ll live with the consequences. If we play like we did [against Florida] then we can’t expect any results, I guess.” 

Instead it was defensive breakdowns by his top pair D-men that led to each of Florida’s first two goals, and then it was a bouncing tipped puck by Jared McCann that eluded Rask for the game-winning goal in the third period. More importantly, Rask stopped all 14 shots he faced in the second period with most of them coming after Danton Heinen had tied up the game for the Black and Gold. 

On a night when the B’s once again didn’t play their best hockey against a hungry Florida club still scrapping for the playoffs, Rask was the shining star for the Bruins in a stark reversal of fortune from his previous game. He turned away Nick Bjugstad twice on breakaway chances, and had a number of high quality saves behind a Bruins defense that made a lot of uncharacteristic mistakes. 

“I thought he was terrific…by far our best player,” said Bruce Cassidy. “Some more breakdowns like against Philly where they got behind us, and now we have to correct it. Sometimes in the second periods it can happen, but [against Florida] it happened way too many times, and that’s not winning hockey. Not winning puck battles in front of your net; not winning hockey. Managing the puck as forwards between the blue lines; not winning hockey. 

“Some of those things have crept in. With two more games that are similar to what we’ve seen where guys are in and out of the lineup, we won’t know until Thursday [when the playoffs start]. I trust this group, but it’s frustrating sometimes to see us have the will to bounce back and get into games…but not be able to start on time.”

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With first place in the Atlantic Division still open for competition and the Bruins looking to gather a little confidence in these final two games, it’s not out of the question that Rask may find his way in for more regular season action against either Ottawa or Florida. And if not, then Rask was 9-2-1 in his last 12 games leading into the postseason with a .912 save percentage, and showed that he was able to shake off a fairly poor big game effort in the loss to Tampa earlier this week.

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