The Boston Bruins had won five games in a row before their last loss to the Columbus Blue Jackets Saturday night. Before suffering his 11th loss of the season, Tuukka Rask was one of the main reasons why the Black and Gold were back in the playoff picture.

Rask suffered some back luck Saturday night at TD Garden allowing a goal with three minutes left in regulation where the puck trickled through his pads to an open Matt Calvert. The Finnish netminder stopped 28 of 30 shots on the night and kept his team in the game throughout the night.

Since Rask suffered a loss at home to the Chicago Blackhawks on December 11th, he was 6-0-2 at TD Garden before his team’s loss to the Blue Jackets. Over his last 11 starts overall, the 27 year-old is 7-1-3 and he has allowed two or fewer goals in six of those 11 starts.

His statistics are starting to take shape as they did last season. Rask is 19-11-6 on the year with two shutouts. His save percentage (.916) and goals against average (2.40) are still below average, but those have made a jump due to Rask’s play as of late.

In one of their biggest games of the week against the New York Rangers, Rask recorded his 25th career shutout by stopping all 30 shots he faced. He made timely saves all night long allowing the Black and Gold to build their lead eventually leading to the 3-0 victory.

Related: Rask, Bergeron, pace Bruins past Rangers

“He was really good for us tonight,” head coach Claude Julien said about Rask after he notched his second shutout of the season on Thursday night. “This team has a lot of speed, the Rangers, and we acknowledged that before the game. They certainly displayed it at times and when there was the odd breakdown and they had opportunities to score, Tuukka was up to the task there and made some big saves for us. No doubt in my mind that he was our best player tonight.”

Sure, during this win streak many B’s played better than they had (as they should). David Pastrnak provided a spark, Milan Lucic was back to his wreckless abandon-self, David Krejci was making numerous plays and Patrice Bergeron was winning face-offs, scoring goals and killing penalties. But, Rask was the most consistent player the team had.

Rask will look to bounce back with his loss against the Blue Jackets as the B’s travel to Dallas and then Colorado to close out the first half of the season before the All-Star break.

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