BOSTON — Bruins goaltender Tuukka Rask needs to play better, but blaming him for the club’s struggles this season isn’t fair because his teammates haven’t given him a ton of help.
That was evident in Wednesday night’s 5-4 overtime loss to the Philadelphia Flyers, which dropped Boston’s home record to 0-3-1 and Rask’s save percentage to .854 over five starts.
The Bruins made too many mistakes in their own zone, whether it be poor passes, lapses in coverage, not being physical enough to win 50-50 puck battles and failing to keep the Flyers out of the slot.
“I just think Tuukka has to stop the puck. There’s nothing that’s different, and there may be mistakes, but that’s why you have a goaltender, to stop those,” Bruins head coach Claude Julien said.
“And I don’t think he’s making excuses, either. He’s pretty good about owning up to his play, but we need to be better as a group, from the goaltender on out, and our D’s didn’t close quick. They had a lot of time to make plays, and we were soft in battles, and they were hungrier than we were, and that’s the reality of the situation here. That’s why we didn’t win (Wednesday).”
Giving up too much time and space was an issue all night for the B’s. You cannot allow top-end offensive players such as Claude Giroux, Jakub Voracek and Wayne Simmonds all day to shoot the puck or set up a teammate for a scoring chance.
Sam Gagner’s goal — which was aided by a poorly timed Boston line change — was an example of the Flyers having too much time and space to shoot on Rask.
The B’s gave up 15 high-danger scoring chances at 5-on-5, per War on Ice. That’s way more than what we’ve been accustomed to seeing from this team throughout the Julien era. Rask is facing 10.1 high-danger shots per game, the third-most of any goalie, and only four teams have given up more high-danger scoring chances than Boston at 5-on-5.
The chart below illustrates how many shot attempts Philly generated from the slot.
It’s hard for Rask to face so many shots from 10 feet out or closer and keep the Bruins in the game. On Giroux’s first goal, a turnover behind the net and a break down in coverage led to a high-danger scoring chance and ultimately a goal.
“I’ve let in some bad goals,” Rask said. “(Wednesday) maybe I should have one, but you know, overall, I felt pretty good and a lot of times — I always look at the goals, if I could have done something differently. Maybe 85 or 90 percent of the time I wouldn’t have. I wouldn’t call it a struggle. But then again you let in five, four goals every game, can’t be pretty happy about that.”
Rask must be better and more consistent for the Bruins this season because the margin for error is much slimmer than in years past. But to say he’s no longer elite is just ridiculous. There’s a reason why he has the second-best 5-on-5 save percentage of any goalie since 2013.
The Bruins will be prone to mistakes given the youth and inexperience on their blue line. Luckily, many of these errors are fixable with coaching, video review and more reps.
These fixes need to be made quickly, though, because the Bruins cannot afford to fall too far in the standings and be forced to play catch up after the All-Star break.
Thumbnail photo via Kim Klement/USA TODAY Sports Images
