Boston Bruins goalie Tuukka Rask leaves the NHL bubble and chooses the Stanley Cup playoffs, he announced via a statement from the team on Saturday.
“I want to play with my teammates, but right now there are things more important than hockey in my life, and that’s with my family,” Rask said. “I want to thank the Bruins and my teammates for their support and wish them success.”
The news came less than two hours before Game 3 of the Bruins’ quarterfinal series against the Carolina Hurricanes. Boston will now turn to veteran Jaroslav Halak as the starter for the rest of the playoffs. The Canes won Game 2 until even the series, 1-1.
The Bruins won the Presidents Trophy this season as the only team to hit 100 points before the break. The 33-year-old Rask, who helped lead the team to the Stanley Cup Final in 2019, had a strong season, going 26-8-6 with a .929 saving percentage.
Boston did not see it as dominant in the wake of the summer. The Bruins went winless in the round-robin, dropped from first to fourth seed, and were on the verge of a tough battle with Carolina in the first round.
Rask smelled feathers in the hockey world after Game 2, when he openly discussed about playing in the fanless atmosphere.
“To be honest with you, it doesn’t really feel like playoff hockey there,” Rask said on Thursday.
Rask later expanded: “You try as hard as you can. Of course you play a best-of-seven series, so there will be some field battles and some not. But when you play on your rink, you play on “There’s an ice rink, and there are fans cheering for you or against you … that’s causing another buzz around the series. There’s none of that, so it’s sometimes boring,” he said. . “It can take five minutes and it’s just coast-to-coast hockey and there’s no atmosphere. It just feels like an exposition game.”
On Friday, coach Bruce Cassidy addressed Rask’s comments after generating a day of headlines.
“I did not speak to him after his remarks. Tuukka, I think the Boston media knows him well enough. He answers his questions how he feels,” Cassidy said. “It’s a unique environment, but for me there’s playoff intensity on the ice. You just have to check what you can master when you’re a player and, in my situation, a coach. The way I look at it, to the At the end of the day, they will hand out the Stanley Cup to one this year. We have to play our best hockey if we want that team. “
Bruins captain Zdeno Chara also answered questions about Rask on Friday.
“I think we all need to realize that it’s an adaptation and something that’s completely new and none of us have ever experienced it,” Chara said. “So in the first place, Tuukka has his rights to his views and opinions. I don’t think he meant anything bad to him, he was just kind of being honest. It feels a little different from the other playoff experiences we had. “We’ve dealt with all the fans and emotions. I think we just keep adjusting forward and feeling more comfortable in the environment in which we currently play.”
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