from Kevin Paul Dupont of the Boston Globe,

“There are things more important than hockey in my life,” he said, as relayed through the club’s media release issued late in the morning, “and that is being with my family.”

It was nearly verbatim what he said in November 2018 when GM Don Sweeney granted him a leave of absence, thrusting the netminding duties that weekend entirely in the hands of Jaroslav Halak, the same guy who was tossed the car keys Saturday.

What we have here is Déjà vu Tuukka. Not good.

In 2018, Rask returned three days later, noting it was time he needed to spend away, do right by his family, and he plugged seamlessly back into the job and led the Bruins to within one win of capturing the Cup last spring.

“This was a time that, deep inside my heart,” Rask said upon returning from his brief LOA, “I felt like I needed to take time to be with my family and make things right, so I can be back here and focus on my job.”

Look, we don’t really know what’s going on here, because whatever the state of Rask’s family dynamics, whatever influence they have on his mindset for the job, that’s his business.

What we do know with absolute certainty, though, is that Rask now twice has proven he is unable to balance being both family man and franchise goalie. That’s trouble. That’s no way to run a hockey team, never mind try to survive four grueling rounds of postseason play and capture what would be the franchise’s seventh Stanley Cup in its near century of existence.

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