It has been yet another successful outing for the Boston Bruins, as they stormed back and beat the Carolina Whalers — er, Hurricanes — 4-3 in overtime. The Bruins now have at least one point in 17 straight games. It’s also a season-high five-game winning streak for goaltender Jaroslav Halak.
Halak had a marvelous start to the season, essentially stealing the starter’s job from Tuukka Rask. But ever since Christmas, the goaltending situation has changed. Rask now carries his own personal 17-game point streak, and Halak started to struggle a bit in the new year. After the All-Star break, the Slovakian netminder found himself again. He is on a personal seven-game point streak and a five-game win streak.
As of right now, Halak has 18 victories in 33 games featuring splendid 2.31 goals-against average and .924 of save percentage. Last night against the Hurricanes, Halak made 34 saves on 37 shots on goal.
Halak felt that he is going to succeed and redeem himself again, showing Bruins fans what they saw early in the season.
“It was part of my plan when I was signing with Boston in the offseason. I wanted to play pretty often, that was my goal. So far I think I have fulfilled my expectations,” Halak said.
Halak was well-aware of Tuukka Rask’s presence in Boston and he knew that Finnish netminder is the number one goalie in Boston.
“I’m satisfied to this point. I think we have a great goaltending tandem and that helps us a lot. It´s impossible to dwell only on one goalie during the season. Seasons are long and you need to have two goaltenders ready to play. I hope this will continue until the end of the season,” Halak said.
The 33-year-old goaltender recorded his 250th win in his career in the NHL last night. He is expected to start at least six more games until the end of the season. That would mean Halak would finish the season with more starts than in two of the past three years, which he spent with the New York Islanders.
“Changes are sometimes necessary. I’m old enough not to be surprised by any kind of move,” Halak said.
Halak is looking for redemption, as the Bruins continue to rise up the points standings in the NHL.
