from Steve Conroy of the Boston Herald,

One of the many problems that the B’s faced last year was that Tuukka Rask was forced to play too much after management lost confidence in Niklas Svedberg. Rask played in a career-high 70 games and, though the 2013-14 Vezina Trophy winner’s save percentage (.922) was just slightly off his career average (.926), there were times when he needed a mental break and didn’t get one. This was especially true during the team’s six-game losing streak in February when coach Claude Julien twice tried to give his No. 1 goalie the night off — once with Svedberg starting against the Dallas Stars and then with AHL call-up Malcolm Subban making his NHL debut against the St. Louis Blues — only to be forced to send Rask into the games after bad nights from the backups.

While Svedberg elected to sign a deal to play with a Russian team in the KHL, there are many candidates for the backup role entering camp, but the early favorite just might be Jeremy Smith. The former second-round draft pick of the Nashville Predators had an outstanding 2014-15 AHL season with Providence, his first in the Bruins organization and sixth pro season. After a decent camp last year, Smith posted a .933 save percentage and 2.05 goals-against average in Providence. And at 26, he’s hitting the age when many goalies hit their stride....

Smith is taking nothing for granted, nor should he. Subban has the pedigree of being a first-round B’s pick. Zane McIntyre is coming off an outstanding college career at North Dakota. And NHL veteran Jonas Gustavsson is in on a tryout contract....

“Last season, I missed a lot of games because of my shoulder and my head (concussion),” Gustavsson said. “My shoulder’s good, my head is good and hopefully it will stay that way. I’m 100 percent and ready to go.”

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