Rask steps up for Bruins in win against Lightning in Game 1

TAMPA -- Patrice Bergeron was having difficulty suppressing a grin. The corners of his mouth flicked up, once, and again, before he got them under control, at least enough to speak.
He could smile about the incident, even laugh, because the Boston Bruins had just defeated the Tampa Bay Lightning, 6-2 in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Second Round at Amalie Arena on Saturday. Game 2 of the best-of-7 series is here Monday (7 p.m. ET; NBCSN, CBC, TVAS).

Bergeron had been asked about the antics of Tuukka Rask, the excitable Bruins goaltender who has thrown milk crates on the ice in moments of pique. There was no milk crate handy on Saturday at 13:22 of the second period, but Rask did have a skate blade.
"That was fun to watch," Bergeron said. "I wasn't sure if he should have thrown that skate blade. I was like, 'No, don't do it.'"
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Said Rask, "I didn't throw it at anybody. If I threw it at somebody, I'd like to apologize, but I didn't. I just wanted to make sure that everybody saw that my blade was off."
Rask had seen the blade pop out after he saved a shot with his left skate, and tried to get the attention of an official to whistle the play dead.
However, there is no rule for referees to stop play for a broken piece of equipment, regardless of whether the equipment belongs to a goaltender or a skater. The lone exception is when referees may stop play after a goaltender has lost his helmet (Rule 9.6).

But Rask threw up his hands. He tried to move around the crease. He tried to get the attention of a referee who, in his belief, could have blown the play dead. Instead, the play went on and Lightning defenseman Mikhail Sergachev scored with a shot from the point to cut Boston's lead to 3-2.
That was when Rask threw the skate blade.
"It's nice to see that emotion out of him, especially the way he stepped up in that game," Bergeron said. "It definitely gives us a lot of confidence. … When you see emotions like that, him getting rattled like he was when the puck gets in, it's a pretty great indicator that he wants it and definitely gives you energy on the bench. You want to do it for him, as well."
Though the incident might have been the most amusing part of the game between Boston and Tampa Bay, there was another aspect that was far more important for Rask and his teammates: the play of the goaltender.
Rask had an up-and-down series against the Toronto Maple Leafs in the first round, allowing goals he probably should have saved and being outplayed at times by Maple Leafs goaltender Frederik Andersen. He finished the series with a 2.94 goals against average and .899 save percentage.

Coming into the second round against the Lightning, both Bruins coach Bruce Cassidy and general manager Don Sweeney had indicated that they needed more from Rask. To go as far as they would like to go in the Stanley Cup Playoffs would require the goaltender who pushed the Bruins to the Stanley Cup Final in 2013 and won the Vezina Trophy in 2014.
From the start on Saturday, the Bruins got the goalie they needed.
"It's a new series," said Rask, who made 34 saves. "You try to come off on top in the first game, try to get the lead. That's what my focus was. Like every game, you try to give your team a chance to win. We knew that they were going to come out hard in the first period, you kind of try to weather the storm."
Rask faced 11 shots in the first period, and the Lightning had 13 scoring chances and another 16 in the second period, according to Natural Stat Trick.
Rask saved them all.
"He was great, especially early on," Bergeron said. "I thought we were on our heels a little bit and they gave us a really good push, had some really good looks. He made great saves and kept us in the game all along, but especially early in the game for us to settle down."
The only goals Rask allowed were by Sergachev and defenseman Dan Girardi at 2:31 of the second period, when he was screened by two of his own defensemen.

"He outplayed their guy," Cassidy said. "That's the way I look at it. Plain and simple. He was better than their guy. You want that every night. You're not going to get that every night. It's two good goaltenders. We saw that the last series. There were times Tuukka was better than Andersen and vice versa. So that's what we hoped, going into the game, that he's better than their guy or at least keeps up with their guy."
Rask did the former on Saturday. He was better than Lightning goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy, a finalist for the Vezina Trophy who made 18 saves on 23 shots. He was as good as he needed to be, and didn't let his emotions overtake his night, recovering, excelling, helping the Bruins win a playoff game on the road.
"He's one of the best goalies in the game," forward Jake DeBrusk said. "Really happy that he's on our team, obviously. Some goaltenders, most maybe, might take [that goal] a little too personally, maybe get rattled from it. But he didn't look rattled at all. He was composed. And he was the biggest reason why we won."