Rask retires from NHL after 15 seasons with Bruins

Tuukka Rask retired from the NHL on Wednesday after 15 seasons with the Boston Bruins.

The 34-year-old played four games after returning Jan. 13 following his recovery from surgery he had in July to repair a torn labrum in his right hip.
Rask last played Jan. 24, when he allowed five goals on 27 shots in a 5-3 loss to the Anaheim Ducks. He was 2-2-0 with a 4.28 goals-against average and .844 save percentage this season.
"Today is a day that I hoped would never come. But now that it's here, I feel I owe it to everyone to hear it from me," Rask said in a statement. "Over these last few weeks, I've realized that my body is not responding the way it needs to for me to play at the level I expect of myself and that my teammates and Bruins fans deserve. Therefore, it is with a heavy heart that I announce my retirement from the game of hockey."
The Bruins said Monday that Rask would not play this week because of a lower-body injury.
"There have been some tough conversations, especially given that I've known the road all along and the commitment he's made to get back to giving himself an opportunity to play again at the level that he expected to return to," Bruins general manager Don Sweeney said Thursday. "And when it didn't meet those things, he started to realize that the body wasn't going to hold up and he made a very difficult decision.
"He did an awful lot of work from a conditioning standpoint. He goes in and is able to play four games, obviously not having the benefit of training camp, not having the benefit of the start of a season ... but I think the end result's going to be the same. The hip and his back just started to give him some concerns on a daily basis."

Rask, who turns 35 on March 10, signed a one-year, $1 million contract Jan. 11 to return to the Bruins. The intention was for him to play for Providence of the American Hockey League before he returned to the NHL, but it had multiple games canceled because of COVID-19.
"Tuukka should be congratulated for obviously all of his accomplishments as a Boston Bruin," Sweeney said. "We're extremely proud of everything that he has contributed to the organization, right down to the very end and how he handled his exit. It was on his terms in terms of how he wanted to lay it out, took some time to really evaluate that and do things the way he wanted to and stayed true to what was important for Tuukka."
The Bruins will rely on goalies Linus Ullmark and Jeremy Swayman for the rest of the season. Ullmark is 16-6-1 with a 2.64 GAA and .913 save percentage in 24 games (23 starts). Swayman is 8-7-2 with a 2.35 GAA, .914 save percentage and one shutout in 18 games (17 starts).
Swayman was reassigned to Providence to make room for Rask on Boston's roster before being recalled Saturday.
"While I am sad to say goodbye to the game I love, I am so very thankful to have shared these last 15 years with the greatest teammates and fans in the best sports city in the world," Rask said. "While these experiences were all incredible, what I will remember most about all of them is the bond that I had with my teammates, coaches and team staffs, the memories that we will always have, and the friendships that will last a lifetime."
Rask had acknowledged that the Bruins (26-15-3), who hold the second wild card into the Stanley Cup Playoffs from the Eastern Conference, could not afford to let him find his game.
"The only way you can do it is by playing, and we're midway through] the season," Rask said recently. "We don't have the luxury of throwing games away, [to