He should be, though Cassidy would not commit to a number of games. He should be because he is by far the best goaltender the Bruins have and, despite a dip in his play of late, one of the better goaltenders in the NHL.
Rask generally tries to avoid the banter, the social media narrative, the opinions of the fans. Asked about the chatter on Tuesday morning, he quipped, "I'm sure they've been very nice to me."
"I don't listen. I don't read," Rask said. "You know where you stand. You know how good you played and when you don't play good, that's all you need. You don't need to listen to the outside voices because that's just going to distract you."
He was not distracted on Tuesday. With help from his teammates, who blocked 24 shots, he came away nearly unscathed after a tough outing in his last start, when he gave up five goals in a loss to the Lightning on Thursday. It was a game that had resulted in criticism from Cassidy, which snowballed when Rask did not start on Saturday.
By Tuesday, that had been shaken off. By Rask. By Cassidy. By the team.
It is true that Rask has had to manage a heavy workload, perhaps heavier than he should be given, with the Bruins' struggles to find an adequate backup goaltender over the past three seasons. It is true that Rask is better when he does not push the mid-60s to 70s in games played. Tuesday night was his 60th appearance this season (59 starts).
"The workload for Tuukka has to be monitored," Cassidy said. "Whether the whole world agrees with that or not, that's the situation. Certain goaltenders can handle X amount of games. The data backs up that he's better with X amount of rest. That's just the way it is.
"I think at the start of the year, was he overplayed? I guess we can all speculate. The second half, we've really tried to monitor. Last week was a bit of an exception, because at crunch time things change a little bit. That's what we're trying to balance."