Jaroslav Halak gets start for ailing Tuukka Rask

With Tuukka Rask still in the “unfit to play” categorization, Jaroslav Halak got the start for the Bruins in their 4-1 loss to the Flyers on Sunday.

Halak made 25 saves in the loss. Though he was off his angle on the Flyers’ fourth goal by Scott Laughton, he did not allow what you could call an egregiously soft goal.

But still. …

“We needed more stops, obviously,” said coach Bruce Cassidy. “There were breakdowns, they were all good goals, good shots. Maybe the second one got through him, it looked like a screen from (Jeremy) Lauzon. Other than that, they were good shots. But obviously when you’re only putting up one goal ourselves we needed more saves. Usually when you look at a goalie… did we need a few extra saves in this situation today? Yes. But at the end of the day there were breakdowns that happened well before the puck came to him. Again, I thought he was fine but if we were going to win we needed a few extra saves.”

Current NHL policy amid the coronavirus pandemic does not allow Cassidy to say what was exactly wrong with Rask, but it does not sound serious. Rask has not been on the ice since the B’s exhibition game loss to Columbus on Thursday. Cassidy hopes that will change soon.

“We were told (Saturday) night that he would be unavailable so we let Jaro know. Then it was going to be a day-to-day thing. So we expect and hope that he’ll be back in the net Wednesday (for the game against Tampa). Let’s see if he’s on the ice (Monday) and we can give you a better idea how he’s feeling and we’ll go from there. Obviously he’s an important part of our team. My understanding is that he is feeling better,” said Cassidy. …

The Bruins wore shirts to the game that said “Listen. Learn. Change.” Cassidy also wore the same shirt for his pre-game press conference..

“This was a team-wide discussion,” said Cassidy. “Obviously (Patrice Bergeron) made a statement, (so did Zdeno Chara), a number of players, myself, and we’re just supporting Matt Dumba‘s comments (Saturday). I thought they were very strong, heartfelt so we’re trying to get behind eradicating racism. Listening, learning, educating, changing the social injustices and I believe that’s what the players were representing and will continue to represent. That was the impetus behind the dress code today.”…

Other than Rask, all the other players who did not play against the Flyers did, including Ondrej Kase and Nick Ritchie. Cassidy feels Ritchie has a shot at playing on Wednesday.

“(Kase) is feeling better. He seems fine. He’s skating well,” said Cassidy. “I guess there was a little fatigue because they’ve ramped it up the last few days to try to get their conditioning. Again, with Ondrej, and I may be getting ahead of myself, but Wednesday (vs. Tampa) would be tough for him to get back up to speed that quickly. We want to get him back in there but we want to giver him a chance to succeed. Ritchie I would think would be more of an opportunity for Wednesday. Ondrej seems good. He was not a real chatty guy to begin with. We’ll catch up when he gets back with the main group to see where he’s at, measure his game, how much time he needs and we’ll go from there.” …

Lauzon drew the ire of the Flyers when he was involved in a puck chase along the boards to with Michael Raffl in the third period. Raffl lost his balance and crashed skates first into the board. He needed to be helped off the ice and it did not look good for him.

While it did not appear that Lauzon slew-footed Raffl, some of the Flyers seemed to assume as much. Flyers coach Alain Vigneault said “It seemed like a slew-foot.” Lauzon and Scott Laughton slashed at each other off a subsequent faceoff and were both given misconducts.  …

While most perks of home ice advantage disappeared in the bubble, the B’s did enjoy a few. The B’s wore their home black uniforms and had the last change. And there was another one. Todd Angilly, the Bruins’ regular anthem singer, performed the American and Canadian anthems remotely from his home in Lynnfield. Nice touch. …

Jack Studnicka showed off his good two-way sensibilities in the first period when, after a Bruin power-play had expired, he hustled back and thwarted a good chance-in-the-making by Raffl. He did not have or create as many chances as he did in the Columbus game, however. …

Anders Bjork, who like Studnicka is trying to win a job, drew two penalties with his hard skating.

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/3goc36m