Tuukka Rask’s comeback ended last week with the veteran’s retirement announcement after four games.
Rask, who turns 35 next month, was no longer in his prime. After offseason hip surgery, he was supposed to return and provide all-star caliber goaltending to bolster the Bruins' playoff hopes. However, the physical complications were too much. That leaves the B’s net to Linus Ullmark and Jeremy Swayman now and in the foreseeable future.
For Rask, the numbers speak for themselves: 564 regular-season games, another 104 in the playoffs with 355 total wins — all franchise records.
His 52 shutouts are second in team history behind Cecil “Tiny” Thompson (74), who played from 1928-38, well before players used curved sticks. Rask’s .921 save percentage puts him in the top five among all NHL goalies all time, in the company of Hall of Famers like Dominik Hasek and Ken Dryden.
He won a Vezina Trophy in 2014 as the NHL’s top goaltender, and then a Jennings Trophy with Jaroslav Halak in 2019 for allowing the fewest goals in the league. He has a Stanley Cup ring from when he was Tim Thomas' backup on the 2011 championship Bruins team. As a starter, he led the Bruins to the final in 2013 and 2019, but was unable to lead the Bruins to victories over the Chicago Blackhawks and St. Louis Blues, respectively.
While there is a vocal contingent of Boston fandom that won’t give Rask his due under any circumstance, history will be far kinder to the man who gave the Bruins an elite option at hockey’s most important position for the past decade.
Toronto’s move for the present secured Boston’s future
The Bruins were prepared to spend a first-round pick on Rask in 2005, three years after they had selected Hannu Toivonen 29th. At the time, Toivonen was one of Boston’s top prospects, and they were willing to go back to the Finland goaltending factory again with the young phenom who played his way into his country’s top pro league as a teen in his draft season.
The Toronto Maple Leafs had other plans. Sitting one spot in front of Boston, they drafted Rask, leaving the B’s to select defenseman Matt Lashoff.
Fast forward a year to the 2006 NHL Draft in Vancouver, the same place that Rask had backstopped the Finns to a bronze medal in the World Junior Championship five months earlier, where he earned tournament top goalie honors. Toivonen had been solid as a rookie on a moribund 2005-06 Bruins team, but a high ankle sprain had ended his season in January. That opened the door for Thomas, then a journeyman, to finish out the year as Boston’s No. 1 option. The Leafs organization was flush with goaltending, as Rask was not even seen as the top prospect. Justin Pogge, a Western Canadian star of the Calgary Hitmen, had been even more impressive than Rask at the WJC.
However, the Leafs needed a veteran goalie to help them win immediately, and both Pogge and Rask were still a few years away from the NHL. Boston had a disgruntled former Calder Trophy winner as the NHL’s 2004 rookie of the year in Andrew Raycroft, and Leafs GM John Ferguson, Jr. saw an opportunity to boost his team. Boston interim GM Jeff Gorton was willing to part with Raycroft for one of Toronto’s young goaltending prospects.
So just a year after missing Rask in the draft, Boston got its man in a 1-for-1 trade.
Rask went on to build a career worthy of Hall of Fame consideration. Making it worse for the Maple Leafs, he's the winningest goalie the franchise ever drafted, and every one of those victories came in a Bruins uniform.
The case for Rask to the Hall of Fame
Like Rick Middleton, Rask may be the most successful Bruins player of his era who might not earn a nod from voters.
That fact that he did not win a Stanley Cup as a starter is a deterrent to his selection, but Henrik Lundqvist didn’t win a championship either, and he is a shoo-in for first-ballot induction. He played 300 more games and posted 151 more regular season wins than Rask, but the impact both players had on their teams is similar. Both became upper-tier staples in net with sustained excellence over a long period of time. Fans can sometimes take for granted the sheer difficulty of an NHL goalie staying on top of his game as the last line of defense year in and year out.
Rask had to be patient in Boston. He did not establish himself as a full-time player until three years after the team traded for his rights.
By the time Rask arrived in North America at age 20, Thomas was entrenched as the starter. In an interesting twist of fate, Thomas was battling through injured hips in 2009-10, Rask’s first full NHL season. The 22-year-old rookie ended up taking on the bigger share of goaltending duties to close out the regular season and playoffs. An upset of the higher-seed Buffalo Sabres in the first round was undone by a collapse from a 3-0 lead in a series against the Philadelphia Flyers. Thomas returned after double-labrum surgery in 2010-11 and brought the Stanley Cup back to Boston for the first time in 39 years. Rask would back Thomas up one more season until 2012-13, when he made the net his, and didn’t fully relinquish it until last week.
Rask did his job at or near the top of a tremendous peer group that continues to raise the NHL’s bar for goaltending as the position gets bigger, more athletic and is better protected than ever before.
"From a goaltending standpoint, that's all you can ever ask for, that's a guy you want to play in front of,” Bruins GM Don Sweeney said. “He owns records, he's had a long history. He deserves all the accolades."
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Rask deserves Hall of Fame consideration. He was an elite performer at one of the toughest positions in team sports. His ability to make difficult saves look routine actually undercut the case for the highest honors in the sport because many just came to expect it from him year after year. There were some stumbles to be sure: missing the playoffs in 2015 and 2016 opened the door to questions and criticisms of his physical and mental toughness. However, once the B’s returned to the postseason in 2017 and every year since, Rask was one of the most important contributors to that successful run.
"To me, he's always been a great Boston Bruin," said head coach Bruce Cassidy. "Played a position where there's a lot of scrutiny. I thought he handled it well with a lot of grace over the years and was a good teammate. I thank him for all his work for the Bruins. I'm glad he retired a Bruin. I think that meant a lot to him.”
Losing Game 7 in 2019 may be the pivotal factor that keeps Rask out of those hallowed halls in Toronto, but it would be a shame if it did. Greatness should not be quantified in championship rings alone, and given his entire body of work, Rask has earned his place among other Boston goaltenders there like Thompson and Gerry Cheevers.
It shouldn’t have ended this way for No. 40, with a sudden retirement announcement four games into a gritty comeback attempt. Although Rask polarized the fan base, in time, many will likely come around to the fact that he was one of the very best ever to play the position in the Black and Gold. It may take some lean years in Boston to see it, but that could be coming.
"I never wanted to play for any other team,” Rask said in his retirement announcement. “I’m so proud to have worn the Spoked-B for my entire career and wouldn’t have had it any other way.”
He will be missed.
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