Bruins lose Jaroslav Halak, forced to recall another goalie.

A tough break for the Bruins.

HockeyFeed
HockeyFeed
Published 2 years ago
Bruins lose Jaroslav Halak, forced to recall another goalie.
Dom Gagne/CSM/Zuma

The timing of this could not possibly be any worse for the Boston Bruins.

On Monday afternoon Bruins head coach Bruce Cassidy announced that the team would be without goaltender Jaroslav Halak for at least the immediate future. The news came off the back of Halak testing positive for COVID-19, something that has quite obviously landed him on the National Hockey League's protocols list for the virus. This means that Halak will now be forced to isolate away from his teammates while he awaits the further results of additional tests, standard procedure during these trying times in the NHL.

Bruce Cassidy himself did not seem like he had a ton of information to go on at the time when he spoke to members of the media.

"We've got to follow up with more testing for him.... when we get more information about that we will pass it on," said Cassidy."

The timing of the news is terrible given the Bruins are currently fighting to hold on to the last playoff sport in the NHL's East Division, and even more so when you consider the ongoing situation with starting goaltender Tuukka Rask. Rask was sidelined last month with what appeared to be a relatively minor ailment at the time, but thus far his injury has failed to respond to treatment and he has been out of the lineup for much longer than had originally been anticipated. It is unclear when he will return, which could leave the Bruins in a situation where they will be forced to use their third and fourth string goaltenders moving forward.

The good news here for the Bruins is that their third string goaltender, Daniel Vladar, has looked quite good in his limited appearances for the team so far this season and it is Vladar that will be getting the next start for the Bruins with Halak out of the lineup. Although he has only made 3 appearances for the bruins this season his 2.03 goals against average and .929 save percentage over those games has been very respectable, and as a result I suspect the Bruins are going to give him a heavy workload moving forward.

It appears that rookie goaltender Jeremy Swayman will be the next man up should Vladar falter moving forward while rookie Callum Booth will be the third man on the taxi squad.


Source: