Looking Back At The Bruins' Trade for Tuukka Rask
In the 2005-2006 NHL season, former Boston Bruins president Harry Sinden decided to part ways with then General Manager Mike O'Connell. The Bruins were at the bottom of the barrel in 05-06, finishing with a 29-37-16 record (74 points). Meaning the team desperately needed a changed. After firing O'Connell, Sinden handed the reigns to assistant General Manager Jeff Gorton.
Gorton was in charge of getting the Bruins rebuild underway. Before the 2006 draft, Gorton made a couple of trades, one deal sent out defenseman, Nick Boynton, to the Arizona Coyotes. This trade didn't work out very well, but the next move that Gorton made changed the franchise forever.
On June 15, the Boston Bruins and Toronto Maple Leafs made a trade that truly set the Bruins up for the next decade plus.
Gorton sent 25-year-old goalie Andrew Raycroft to Toronto for the rights to young goaltender Tuukka Rask.
Rask, was selected 21st overall in the draft a year prior (2005) by the Maple Leafs, while Raycroft was coming off of his fifth season in Boston, supporting a sub .500 record with an 8-19-2 record with a 3.77 goals-against average (GAA) and just a .879 save percentage (SV%). Raycroft, no longer fit the Bruins plan. Resulting in General Manager Jeff Gorton, who was only interim GM for a short time, but his move to acquire Rask turned out to be franchise-altering.
Following the trade, Tuukka Rask spent two seasons with the Providence Bruins in the American Hockey League (AHL). In those two years, he honed a 60-33-6 record and had his best season in his second year in 2008-09 when he had a 2.50 GAA and a .920 SV%. That would earn himself a spot on the main roster, as he would make Boston his permit home.
Rask played 45 games in 2009-10, starting 39 of them, and posting a 22-12-5 record with a career-low 1.97 GAA and a .931 SV%. Playing that season with Tim Thomas, Rask got the nod in the playoffs and led the Bruins to a first-round upset of the third-seeded Buffalo Sabres. In the second round, Boston built a 3-0 series lead in the Eastern Conference Semifinals against the Philadelphia Flyers, only to lose the final four games and the series.
The following season was a big change for the Bruins, who ended up winning the Stanley Cup in 2011. After a seven game back and forth series with the Vancouver Canucks. Thomas was the main goalie in net for the Cup run and Rask was on backup duty, but shortly after, Rask took over between the pipes and had nearly a decade of success in Boston.
Source - Thehockeywriters
| POLL | ||
Was this a good trade? | ||
| Yes | 21 | 87.5 % |
| No | 3 | 12.5 % |
| List of polls | ||
