Nobody wanted another Rask Referendum to suck all the air out of springtime.
Especially this springtime, what with the Boston area opening up again and Bruins fans running a collective finger down the roster and determining that, yes, absolutely, there’s enough talent there for a deep Stanley Cup playoffs run.
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And yet here we are. The Bruins are one loss away from being eliminated from the Cup tourney after dropping Game 5 to the Islanders on Monday night at TD Garden. The final was 5-4, but if you’re a Bruins fan, that’s not the score you’ll be talking about during the run-up to Game 6 on Wednesday night at Nassau Coliseum.
It’s a partial score — as in Islanders 4, Bruins 2 after two periods — that’s going to get all the attention. (Well, that and the officiating, which we’ll get to in a moment.) Tuukka Rask was in the nets for two periods and allowed four goals on 16 shots. And then the Bruins skated out to the ice for the third period, and it was as though a ballot box had been placed in front of their net.
It was actually Jeremy Swayman, of course. The 22-year-old former Hockey East star, one year removed from the Maine Black Bears, was called in from the bullpen to man the nets, thereby setting up our latest Rask Referendum. Swayman allowed a goal, and then the fired-up Bruins scored two more goals. And then the game ended. David Pastrnak spoke to the Bruins’ late-night surge when he said, “I wish we had a couple of more minutes,” but, alas, the stodgy NHL has decided to stick with the old-fashioned format of three 20-minute periods.
So … Rask. He allowed a power-play goal late in the first period when Mathew Barzal put a shot over his glove from the right faceoff circle. In the second period, also on the power play, the Islanders took a 2-1 lead on a shot that somehow managed to ricochet off both of Connor Clifton’s skates and arrive all perfumed and gift-wrapped in front of Kyle Palmieri, who put an easy shot past Rask.
The Bruins tied it on an awesome goal by Brad Marchand, who deftly maneuvered the puck as he crashed the net as though on third-and-1. But the Islanders retook the lead when Josh Bailey, alone in front, lifted a shot past a falling Rask. The Isles made it 4-2, again on the power play, with Barzal feeding a nice pass to Jordan Eberle, who beat Rask. It didn’t help matters any that Bruins defenseman Jarred Tinordi broke his stick, with Charlie Coyle handing him his.
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How much any one goal was Rask’s “fault” is in the eye of the beholder, but on the whole he was hardly stellar — even taking into account pucks going off skates, broken sticks and, to complete the trifecta, an officiating crew that stiffed the Bruins a few times.
Bruce Cassidy managed the neat trick of putting out there how much he likes referees Francois St. Laurent and Francis Charron — really, he made it sound as though he’s had them over to the house for grilling and horseshoes — while also saying he thought they did a lousy job with the whistles. Bonus points to Cassidy for saying that the Islanders “sell a narrative over there that it’s more like the New York Saints, not the New York Islanders.”
But what about pulling Rask?
“Yeah, there was some maintenance that needed to be done,” the Boston coach said. “He wasn’t 100 percent, so I made a decision. That’s a call we had to make between periods. I’ll just say he wasn’t himself … certainly could have went back in. We made a decision not to put him back in.”
Cassidy was asked if Rask will be ready for Game 6.
“I assume he will,” Cassidy said.
With those four words — “I assume he will” — Cassidy has unwittingly done his part to help create this latest Rask Referendum. He’s not saying Rask will start. He’s saying he assumes he’ll start. Remember, this a man who chooses his words carefully. And he knows when and how to be brutally honest, such as when he criticized his remade-on-the-fly penalty-killing unit for not doing a better job of clearing the puck.
And Cassidy was borderline livid — flat out livid, actually — as he talked about Patrice Bergeron being tossed out of a faceoff early in the game: “Have a little respect for Patrice Bergeron,” he said. “He’s up for the Selke. He’s been a warrior of this league, a face of the franchise, does everything right for hockey, he sells the game, and that’s the way you treat him? I mean, come on.”
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But either because he doesn’t know or because he doesn’t want to say, Cassidy can only assume Rask will his goaltender for Game 6.
Pastrnak, meanwhile, said he has “zero doubt” about Rask’s abilities, calling him “one of the best goalies in the world.”
But one of the best goalies in the world will be back under a microscope for the next two days. This time, it’s not just the anti-Rask lunatic fringe. Now Rask has the task of convincing his coach that, at less than 100 percent, he still gives Boston its best shot to win this series.
(Photo: Fred Kfoury III / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
