That was for both good and bad. On the plus side, Rask showed no signs of rust in Monday's matinee against the Avalanche, stopping 35 of the 36 shots he faced. Unfortunately, the Bruins played in front of him with the same lack of support they showed all too often last season, as Boston failed to provide even a single goal to back Rask's effort in a 1-0 setback.
"What can you do, eh?" Rask said. "It's the first game of the year. If it happens throughout the year it gets kind of frustrating, but I'm not too worried about it yet."
Rask was a little worried about facing real competition for the first time in so long. He had been sharp in a pair of exhibition games this fall, but the long layoff did weigh heavily on his mind going into Monday's contest.
"I was telling Timmy [Thomas] before that game that you get that little nervousness in you because it's your first game and I haven't played in a long time in a real situation, so I felt kind of weird before the game," said Rask, who last played a regular-season game on April 10 in New Jersey. "But once the puck dropped I got into that groove and felt pretty good."
Rask's teammates at least helped out in giving Rask a chance to find his rhythm early, albeit not necessarily in a way coach Claude Julien would approve. Zdeno Chara took a cross-checking penalty just 1:56 into play, and Adam McQuaid followed him to the soon thereafter, giving Colorado a brief two-man advantage.
Rask came up with several big stops to help kill those penalties, and remained sharp the rest of the way.
"It's never good when you go down two men," Rask said. "But if you survive that with no goals against you gain that confidence and you start feeling good."
The Bruins certainly felt good about Rask's play and in the knowledge that they have two legitimate No. 1 goalies they can rely on every night.
"He played awesome," Bruins forward Brad Marchand said. "He made a ton of big saves. He gave us every opportunity to win. He played an amazing game. It was by no means his fault."
Julien agreed with that assessment, singling Rask out as the lone positive from a dreary day at the Garden.
"He's probably the only bright light on this game today," Julien said. "Had it not been for him, this game probably would have been over much sooner than it was. He kept us in there and gave us a chance. We just didn't respond."
Rask couldn't even be faulted too much for the lone goal of the game. That came after Colorado won a faceoff in the Boston zone. Johnny Boychuk was cut off in the corner by a lineman, helping open up space for Milan Hejduk to cut into the slot and fire home a shot that deflected off Chara in front and past Rask.
"We lost the draw and they got the puck," Rask said. "They kind of dangled over to the middle a little bit, the guy shot it and it hit a shin pad and went in. I was screened, but I saw where I thought it was going, but it deflected off of something and went in."
Boychuk was frustrated by his collision with the linesman and the team's overall lack of support for Rask, but was quick to add his praise for the play of the Finnish netminder.
"Tuukka played stellar," Boychuk said. "We should have got the win for him, that's for sure. He plays phenomenal, but we've got to at least score one for him to win."
