Don Sweeney: ‘Zero reservations’ about Tuukka Rask

The Bruins have some questions to answer about their roster as they approach the draft and the start of free agency on Oct. 9.

And on Wednesday, GM Don Sweeney left them mostly unanswered.

But the B’s executive was unequivocal on the most critical issue facing his team – Tuukka Rask and goaltending. Sweeney expects Rask, who left the team in Toronto bubble last month to tend to a family emergency back home in the Boston area, to be one of his two goaltenders whenever the 2020-21 season begins.

While Sweeney said he hadn’t had a conversation with Rask since the goalie departed, other than to check up on his family’s well-being, the GM remained supportive regarding Rask, the club’s all-time leader in wins, and the goalie’s level of commitment.

“I have zero reservations about where Tuukka will be both on and off the ice for us,” said Sweeney. “We feel we’ve had strong goaltending the last couple years, we’ve done a good job of mapping out the health of both players (Rask and Jaroslav Halak) and preserving when they’re at their at their best. We continue to want to do that going forward and I think we’re in a really good spot with our goaltending. We’ll address needs as we see them going forward. I think we’ve got a couple of younger players in (Daniel) Vladar and (Jeremy) Swayman and (Kyle) Keyser coming back off of injury that will battle for playing time and we’ll allow those guys to continue to battle for playing time.”

While Sweeney never puts a ceiling on young players – understandably so — it’s doubtful that any of those younger players are ready to push either Rask or Halak out of a job. Vladar needs more time as a No. 1 in Providence. Swayman, just signed out of the University of Maine last spring, has not played a pro game. Due to injury, Keyser played only seven games in his first pro season. Unless Sweeney suddenly changes course and moves Rask, it looks like they’ll have the same goaltending duo that won the Jennings Trophy this year for the tandem that allowed the fewest goals.

There will be a lot of goalies headed to the free agent market – Braden Holtby, Robin Lehner, Matt Murray, Jacob Markstrom – but sinking a long-term, big money deal into a goalie would not be prudent, especially when no one knows when fans will be allowed inside the building again.

Rask has one year left on his contract. His agent, Markus Lehto, told the Athletic that “there has been no discussion that he wouldn’t return” to fulfill his final year. While the rest of the core conducted final interviews with reporters last week, Rask has not spoken publicly since leaving Toronto.

When it was brought up that this wasn’t the first time Rask had to leave the team for a family emergency – he asked for and was granted a short leave of absence in 2018 during which he missed two games – Sweeney again said he’s not concerned about Rask’s desire to play. In Rask’s defense, Sweeney pointed to the bottom line – his performance.

“I have zero reservations. If you look at Tuukka’s actual play – I do believe he’s a Vezina finalist this year — for me, that pretty much dictates everything,” said Sweeney. “Obviously, his own personal life, we all have matters that at times we have to deal with and he’s been given the opportunities in a couple instances to make sure he feels good on and off the ice. I think any player, any manager, any person involved in sport or in life would respect – has to respect that people have to tend to their own personal business. How he chooses to do that is his own decision and his alone. We provide resources for all of our players to work through any issues that they may or may not have on and off the ice and then provide support accordingly. And we’re not going to deviate from that. You have to respect his privacy and allow him the latitude to take care of it. And ultimately it hasn’t affected his play on the ice. We have good goaltending and we’ll continue to do so.”

On the issues of his unsigned free agents, Sweeney was a lot less definitive. Here’s a rundown on other topics Sweeney addressed:

• While he didn’t rule out re-signing Torey Krug, he didn’t sound much more optimistic about getting a deal done with his power-play quarterback than Krug himself did last week.

“Well, we haven’t found a landing spot,” said Sweeney. “Listen, I respect Torey, coming in as a rookie free agent and making our hockey club. I only hope that we made the moves to accommodate what he and his family and agent feel he has earned. I would be the last person to begrudge any player trying to make the best decision for them and their family, and in a perfect world it’s with us. But we know that the world is anything but perfect right about now. So again, I don’t have an update on any individual contract level. Torey’s personal voice, he’s entitled to say whatever the hell he feels he wants to say. You guys know me well enough that I’m not going to comment publicly on any different contract negotiations other than hoping to find a landing spot when I have a good player and people that I feel are important to our organization. And Torey is such.”

• Zdeno Chara expressed a desire to return to the Bruins last week and he is in a much different spot in his career than Krug. He’s been amenable to working around the team’s needs in other parts of the roster, taking a pay cut in his last contract. Sweeney was non-committal.

“I saw the reports,” said Sweeney of Chara’s comments. “We are scheduling Zoom meetings with all of our players in the coming weeks. We’ve taken a little bit of time to step away from being away as a group to allow people to catch their breath. We started pro meetings, meet with coaches this week, internal discussions organizationally, so I think we’re going to check some boxes that we need to and then we’re going to start to address on an individual player level. And I respect Zdeno’s comments, he’s always been an iconic player for us, an important player for us, and we’re going to explore opportunities with him and other players that have either UFA or RFA status and hopefully check off the boxes like we have with several other players and continue to move forward and improve our hockey club and addressing Zdeno’s contractual situation is part of that process.”

• Sweeney addressed the lack of 5-on-5 scoring in the playoffs as well as a lack of production from some of the younger players. The question of what kind of player Anders Bjork exactly is remains unanswered.

“At some point he’s either going to have to score or be even better as a stronger checking forward and a penalty-killing player. And that’s to be determined,” said Sweeney. “Again, that’s his first playoff experience. You look back and you referenced David Pastrnak and the growth of that player way back when we played Ottawa, I think we all had similar conversations about where David Pastrnak was as a player. I think you’ve seen his growth and credit to David and the work that he’s done. Anders is going to have to continue to do that work and get better in all areas of his game.”

Sweeney also reiterated what coach Bruce Cassidy said about the absence of Pastrnak and Ondrej Kase from training camp due to protocol violations.

“They missed 28 straight days of a practice environment. That’s a difficult situation and Bruce referenced it a little, the conditioning. And David Pastrnak pushed back because he felt he had done work and he’s right. He did work. So overall conditioning, fine. But game condition, practice condition, it’s far different from your overall condition. And missing 28 straight days, anybody is going to be behind the 8-ball,” said Sweeney.

“I think you saw it show up with Kase’s situation later on, he jumped in, didn’t have any of the round-robin games and actually played really well against Carolina. Didn’t finish. Had the shot opportunities to score and in years past he has provided offensive scoring in those situations. So, we’re hopeful that he will find that in those situations. And again, 28 straight days, not an excuse, just a variable that we had to deal with. He had to deal with and did not fare as well against the Lightning. Did look fatigued in that situation and I think I it caught up to him. Hopefully with the time now between when we get to play again, he’ll apply what he needs to.”

Sweeney expects Jack Studnicka, Trent Frederic and Zach Senyshyn to push for spots in the lineup. With the fourth line failing to meet the high standards it set last year and the third line in constant flux, there should be opportunity there.

• While the B’s lost to the Lightning in five games, Sweeney didn’t feel like the gap between the two teams is as wide as the result indicated.

“I don’t want to take anything away from the Lightning’s accomplishment against us and where they’re at. I think they’ve earned that placement and they played better than we did in that particular series,” said Sweeney. “I feel that we have a good team. Did we play our best? Nope, we did not. We weren’t at full capacity as well. I think playing against good teams in that situation, you have to be both. You have to be relatively healthy and I think you have to play your best hockey and we didn’t, so that’s on us.

“I think we’re always looking at our organization and where the transition and where the changes are possible to continue to get better and move forward as well as getting better for the future. We’re a really competitive team. We had an outstanding regular season up until the pause and we didn’t get back to the level of play that we were at when the pause happened. That’s on us. For playing reasonably well against a good team in Carolina… again, you break the series down against Tampa and that’s a natural reaction for all of us to do to find our weak spots and where we can try and better at. You look at Game 1, we win Game 1, we’re shot a way from either team winning Game 2. Did not respond well in Game 3 to the adversity in the first period and generally we’ve been a team that has done that. And again, credit to Tampa for sort of stepping on us when we’re down in that situation. Game 4 was back and forth and Jaro probably didn’t play his best in that game but he responded and played very well in Game 5 and it’s a double overtime. And again, the margins are small when you’re talking about really good teams and I think you had two very good teams and we didn’t play as well as the other team.”

• Sweeney said that what the team does in the free agent market will depend on what it does in the trade market. It sounded like he’ll be kicking tires, vigorously, in the latter.

“There are a lot of teams that are up against the cap in a flat cap environment. We actually have the space to do the things that are necessary to do internally. Whether or not we do those or execute those, that still remains to be seen. We’re going to explore ways to improve our club between now and that date you referenced and see what transpires. We’re looking to make some changes in our group,” said Sweeney. “I feel very good about our overall organization and how competitive we are. But I’m not doing my job if I’m not looking to improve our hockey club on a daily basis without being dissatisfied. I know our group needs to be pushed and have hopefully some internal growth with some players that are coming up on waivers and they have to have an opportunity to make our hockey club. Otherwise, we make hard decisions. I do believe the free agency period will be dictated by whether we make any transactions prior to that, in and around – prior to that or in and around the draft.”

*Bruce Cassidy beat out Columbus’ John Tortorella and Philadelphia’s Alain Vigneault to win the Jack Adams Award as the league’s top coach as voted on by the NHL’s braodcasters. He becomes the fourth Bruins’ coach to win the award, following Don Cherry, Pat Burns and Claude Julien.

 

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