The Bruins got some shocking news prior to Game 3 against the Hurricanes when they were told goalie Tuukka Rask opted out of the rest of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
Boston went on to win 3-1 over Carolina behind 29 stops from Jaroslav Halak.
And Bruce Cassidy had a simple message for the Bruins before they took the ice without their starting goaltender.
“Well the message is we’re not going to change the way we play no matter who’s in net,” the head coach told reporters during his Zoom postgame press conference.
“We’ve proven that with Jaro here for the last two years and now the playoffs. We know he’s a capable goaltender, the only issue for us is Jaro hasn’t played a lot so we want to make sure you allow him a reasonable time to get back into game mode. So that was a message. Jaro is a popular guy in the room, guys want to play for him, and the next part of that message is it’s playoff hockey. We can’t be worried about who’s out of the lineup. We worry about who’s in the lineup. Just like we don’t talk about Pasta when he’s not here. When he gets back in there he’s going to be a good player for us and etc, but the guys that are in there, this is how we’re going to play, and it worked out for us.”
Halak and the rest of the B’s will try to take a crucial 3-1 series lead Monday when they drop the puck at Scotiabank Arena at 8 p.m. ET.
