Tuukka Rask has been signed to an 8 year 56 million dollar contract. Just think about that, when Rask's contract is up, it will be 2021 and our society will be so advanced that we all own flying cars and purple pigs will deliver your mail. Well maybe not but nevertheless, Tuukka Rask will be a Bruins for a LONG time.
Fact is it really is amazing what the Bruins have done with this goalie. I mean after acquiring him back in 2006 in exchange for then Calder Trophy winning goaltender: Andrew Raycroft, Rask has gone 66-45 and 16 for the Bruins while Raycroft won just 39 games in Toronto all before being bounced around the NHL for 4 years and eventually dispatched to Italy.
In hindsight, that 2006 trade was yet another example of a trade where the Bruins stole a player from Toronto and went on to turn him into one of the best at his position. But nevertheless, Rask never played a single game for the Leafs meaning that in all truthfulness, he IS Bruin.
Born in March of 1987, the Finnish Rask began his semi pro career in Providence playing 2 seasons as the team's starter with 3 prominent call ups to Boston scattered across those AHL years. Nevertheless, after then Bruin backup Manny Fernandez' contract expired at the end of the 2008-2009, the door was opened for an eager Rask to get some playing time as he quickly leaped into the league for the 09-10 season starting 39 games and winning 22 of them with a GAA of just under 2.
Yet sadly, after the Bruins relinquished a 3-0 series lead in the 09 semifinals against the Flyers, Rask was robbed of the starting job going into the 2010-2011 run meaning that because of Tim Thomas' heroic cup run in that ensuing season Tuukka would unfortunately spend both 2011 and 2012 as Boston’s backup.
Nevertheless after a season of off-ice troubles an bouts of controversy that ended with a brutal first round exit at the hands of the Capitals, Thomas announced that he would sit out the 2013 season, opening the door for the man who will now make 7 million a year for the remainder of this decade and more.
We all know what he did this season: 56 games including postseason, 33 wins and a GAA 2.00. For 5 months, Rask was the rock that held this team together and for 2 months of postseason action he, like Tim Thomas in 2011, picked up his team an carried them on his shoulders all the way to the cup finals
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Regardless of that, in the wake of what is now tied as the biggest goal-tending deal in the history of the NHL, there will be people who will question this mega deal. Fact is on another team, yeah he really would not deserve the 56 million dollars he will earn over the next near decade of play yet in Boston yeah I’d say he does. Fact is when you look at the 2 runs to the finals over the past few years; both Bruins teams have been spearheaded by two different near historic goaltenders: Tim Thomas and Tuukka Rask.
The Bruins are a team built around goaltending and a team that without it would be nothing. Tuukka Rask deserves what he is getting and while there are definitely more skilled players in the NHL the fact that Rask is now the highest paid goalie in hockey history, reigns supreme: no man is more valuable to his team then the one who will be a Bruin for the better part of his remaining career. No man is more valuable to his team than Tuukka Mikel Rask.
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