Rask takes blame, but plenty to go around for Bruins in Game 5

BOSTON -- Tuukka Rask did not hesitate.
"Probably could have stopped more pucks with my eyes closed. That's about it," the Boston Bruins goaltender said. "It's on me."

RELATED: [Complete Bruins vs. Maple Leafs series coverage]
The last the TD Garden crowd saw of Rask on Saturday, he was skating off the ice and going down the tunnel. It was 11:55 into the second period, and Toronto Maple Leafs forward James van Riemsdyk had just scored a power-play goal to give the Maple Leafs a three-goal lead. As it turned out, it was the high-water mark for the visitors.
And a low point for Rask, who took on all the burden of the 4-3 loss in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference First Round by himself.
The loss, nearly erased when the Bruins stormed back at the end of the second period and into the third, sent the series back to Toronto for Game 6 on Monday (7 p.m. ET; NBCSN, CBC, TVAS, NESN) with Boston leading 3-2.
It could have been over. Instead, the Bruins came out slow and sluggish, exacerbating the fact that their goaltender was not at his best.
In all, Rask faced 13 shots. He allowed four goals.
"Sometimes you track pucks better than the other days," Rask said. "Today, as you probably could tell, I wasn't tracking the puck very well. It happens sometimes. Too bad it happened today."

The first goal came at 6:36 of the first period, when Maple Leafs forward Connor Brown knocked a rebound out of the air after Auston Matthews tried a wraparound attempt that Torey Krug blocked with his stick.
The second came at 10:12 of the first, when Andreas Johnsson slipped behind the Bruins defense, allowing him to take a feed from Nazem Kadri and beat Rask glove side.
But it was the third goal that crushed Rask and the Bruins.
That came at 10:36 of the second period, from Tyler Bozak, 51 seconds after Bruins forward David Backes had cut the Maple Leafs lead to one with a power-play goal. Rask had a clear view of Bozak on the play, but he could not get his glove on the puck.
Suddenly, the Bruins were down by two again, and the game felt like it was slipping away.
"I didn't have too many shots out there," Rask said. "But just one of those, you're fighting it. Those first two goals were nothing to do with tracking, but it's just, never got into the game, really, and couldn't make those stops that I should have made to keep the game tight, especially that third goal. We scored. We had the momentum going, and then they get a chance, and I couldn't stop the puck."
Then, another 1:19 after that came the van Riemsdyk goal, and the exit for Rask, who was replaced by Anton Khudobin.
He ran off, toward the Bruins dressing room, and grabbed a bottle of water.
As he said, "Had to burn the energy somehow."
"I didn't think he had it tonight," coach Bruce Cassidy explained. "So we went with Anton. Clearly, if I thought he was on, then he wouldn't have got pulled."

The loss left Rask 5-11 in Stanley Cup Playoff games when the Bruins have a chance to end a series. He has a 2.94 goals-against average and .895 save percentage in such situations.
But the game was far from all about the goaltender.
"Not a good effort from us," defenseman Charlie McAvoy said. "That's not indicative of how he played. A couple unfortunate goals. Some odd mans. … Definitely not his fault tonight. Whenever he gets pulled, we know that we didn't do our job.
"He's got our backs, and we've got his."
The Bruins did not come out the way they had intended, especially for a team that got top-line center Patrice Bergeron back and was hoping to close out the series and avoid a trip back to Toronto for Game 6.
By the end, they looked far better, buzzing at the Maple Leafs, and finishing with 45 shots on goal, 20 of them in the third period. The Maple Leafs had 21 shots on goal, in total.
At the start, though, it was all Toronto.
"Shame on us for not coming out better, having a better first 10 minutes there," McAvoy said. "We knew they were going to come like that. Their backs are against the wall. They're going to continue to come like that."
And so the Bruins have to be ready. They have to be prepared in Toronto on Monday.
They have another chance to close out the series, another opportunity to move on to the second round, where they would find a rested Tampa Bay Lightning team waiting. They continue to have confidence, in themselves, in their goaltender.
They also know their first round is not over yet. They know they let one go. They know they could have been better, especially at the start of Game 5. And no one knew that better than Rask.
"Obviously, when they scored the first goal and then the second goal, that gave them some life," Rask said. "That's something we wanted to do. Didn't accomplish that. That's where your goaltender has to step up and make one of those saves, or both those saves, kind of weather the storm a little bit. Today, I didn't."