Montreal has crushed the confidence of Bruins, Tuukka Rask

P.K. Subban, of all people, is a Tuukka Rask apologist.

“To be honest with you, when you see some of the goals that we’ve scored, we’ve done a good job of creating traffic. It’s not easy stopping second and third shots,” he said before the Montreal Canadiens’ game vs. Boston on Thursday night at Bell Centre. "We’ve had a couple of breakaways against him — that’s a 50-50 chance.”

Yet Rask didn’t get the start against the Canadiens, Boston’s arch rival, in a four-point game in the Atlantic. Niklas Svedberg did. He wasn’t terrible through 20 minutes. But he’d give up four more in back of a deteriorating defensive effort, losing 5-1 to the Habs.

There was a thought that Rask might play here after getting pulled by the Bruins in their 6-1 loss at the Toronto Maple Leafs on the previous night. Not only because he’d be rested, but because the Bruins needed a strong effort against Montreal and Rask needed some redemption.

But he sat. Because the Canadiens own Tuukka Rask.

There’s really no other way to look at it. He’s 3-11-3 against Montreal in the regular season. He’s lost seven of 11 games at Bell Centre if you include the playoffs. His .902 save percentage against them in the regular season is his lowest vs. any team against whom he has at least 10 starts.

Does that add up to sitting him in a critical game, protecting him from Montreal?

Michael Felger on CSN New England doesn’t believe so:

"They were afraid to play Tuukka Rask, their $7-million-a-year Vezina Trophy-winning goalie," said Felger. "They were afraid that he's so fragile up there [against Montreal] that they played the backup. To me, that's puke inducing."

(Quite a gag reflex he has there.)

Matt Kalman, however, predicted before the road trip that Rask would sit vs. the Canadiens, and had no problem with it:

Keeping Rask away from Montreal wouldn’t be a statement against Rask’s abilities, it would be a way to throw the Canadiens off at least a tad and maybe gain a psychological edge for an inevitable best-of-seven meeting in the spring. It worked out for the Rangers last season. Goaltender Henrik Lundqvist hadn’t played at Bell Centre since Jan. 15, 2012 when he started Game 1 there in the Eastern Conference Final in May. Lundqvist had lost six of seven starts in Montreal before the Rangers started keeping him out of games there. Lundqvist responded on the biggest stage with wins in the first two games of that series, which the Rangers went on to win.

So there’s some sound logic behind not playing him there, but there’s also context. Rask played 23 minutes against Toronto, and gave up three goals on 16 shots. Previously, he had been great: 4-0 in his last four starts, not giving up more than two goals. So it’s not as if he’s been in a rut.

There’s just something off about protecting one of the best goalies in hockey from a particular team or arena, no matter what the numbers say. Exorcising those demons is a process, and each strong performance from Rask against Montreal helps along in that process. Sure, you can hide him in November, but you can’t in May or June; and a strong effort last night at Bell Centre could have gone a long way toward building confidence against the Habs that Rask, and his team, currently lack.