Bruins coach Bruce Cassidy knows well how difficult it is to convince players to take a break, especially with how much time off the Bruins have had this season. But with the schedule picking up and games coming furiously on a regular basis through the All-Star break, Cassidy said there are other ways to keep the players fresh, namely limiting their minutes in-game.
"Most guys, I'll be the first to tell you, do not want to not play and be out…it's more of an in-game thing as a coach where you limit the tough minutes for the players and hope they get through it," said Cassidy. "That's something we'll discuss with the player - or manage them better in game. Last night, I thought we were doing a good job. All of a sudden, the special teams take over and we have that stretch at the end of the game that kind of slanted the way the minutes ended up."
As they usually do after back-to-back games, the Bruins remained off the ice - with the exception of a handful of players - on Friday to rest and recuperate.
"We've got a 1 o'clock game [on Saturday], we're off Sunday," said Cassidy. "So there is a little bit of opportunity in season to use those days between games as you see fit. Fortunate for us, we had that break and we're able to revisit a lot of our systems and talk about some adjustments we wanted to make or get back to how we wanted to play. It's paid off for us and now we're using it to rest.
"Some other teams might be the opposite where they need to get on the ice and fix things. We're fortunate we don't. We are getting those opportunities now. Going forward again, those are things we'll discuss internally."
Along those lines, Cassidy said the coaching staff will monitor the workload of Tuukka Rask over the coming days and assess his conditioning and recovery time as he returns to regular NHL action. Until that is flushed out, the goaltending schedule will remain in flux, though Cassidy does expect it to become a friendly competition between the pipes.
"We've got to let it play out a little bit first," said Cassidy, who named Linus Ullmark as his starter for Saturday's matinee against Nashville. "I think there's always competition, healthy competition, want to push your teammate's competition - not wishing him bad fortune or poor play. I think in this situation we've got two goalies that have typically been No. 1's. [Jeremy] Swayman was in that mix vying to be a No. 1. But now it's those two that have been around.
"We will probably give them each the net a fair amount going forward and over time it will sort itself out. I think any coach would tell you, it's results oriented at the end of the day as you get close to the end of the year. But right now, we feel they're both very good goaltenders. Obviously Tuukka's one game, but we know his previous history and Ully's really gained some traction here in the last little while.
"We've got to be mindful of Tuukka's recovery. He did have major surgery. Make sure that we're not limiting him down the road. I think the surgery's allowed him to play a lot more pain free. That's the good part, which probably means he recovers quicker."
