Tuukka Rask
Regular Season
I actually really like Tuukka compared to modern age goalies. In an age when consistency is terribly hard to come by, where goalies are getting nominated for Vezinas one year just to fall off the face of the earth the next, Tuukka was the model of consistency.
I posted this a couple rounds earlier in a post about Luongo, I'll post again.
Of notable retired goalies (plus Fleury and Quick) who hit their primes after 2000 and may come up for discussion, here is how this consistency compares.
Percentage of Full Seasons With Above Average SV%
1. Rask - 100% (12/12)
2. Luongo - 84% (16/19)
3. Lundqvist - 80% (12/15)
4. Thomas - 75% (6/8)
5. Holtby - 70% (7/10)
6. Fleury - 65% (13/20)
7. Nabokov - 64% (9/14)
8. Brodeur post 2000 - 64% (9/14)
9. Quick - 59% (10/17)
10. Price - 57% (8/14)
11. Kiprusoff - 55% (6/11)
12. Rinne - 54% (7/13)
Rask is the ONLY goalie to never fall below average in SV% his entire career even compared to legends already inducted.
His QS% is a .608 throughout his career. Notably ahead of other contemporaries like Price (.574), Rinne (.572), Holtby (.571), Quick (.531), and Fleury (.551).
His prime regular season years are also pretty good:
2010: 1st in SV%, 8th in GSAx, 3rd in GSAA, 5th All Star, 7th Vezina
2011-2012: best backup in the league to prime Tim Thomas
2013: 3rd in SV%, 2nd in GSAx, 4th in GSAA, 4th All Star, 5th Vezina
2014: 2nd in SV%, 12th in GSAx (interesting), 2nd in GSAA, 1st All Star, 1st Vezina
2015-2019: .917 SV%, easily top 5 goalie in this time
2020: 2nd in SV%, 2nd in GSAx, 1st in GSAA, 2nd All Star, 2nd Vezina
Playoffs
People also like to shoot down his playoffs, but it is of note that he led the playoffs in SV% three times for starting goalies who made it past the first round (2013, 2014, 2019) and his career playoff SV% is a .925, up from his regular season. Not the full picture, definitely some asterisks there but he's hardly a bad playoff goalie.
Someone commented about the 2013 finals meltdown, but I find that hard to put that on Rask. In the final two minutes he gives up two goals but the tying goal is a cross-crease one timer where Lucic fails to pick up his man after an insane Patty Kane zone entry and Toews pass. The shot is almost from in the crease, and the Hawks had 6 men on the attack. Not on Rask. The winning goal comes off of an insane redirect followed by a rebound off the post - another shot from in the crease where Boychuk was caught puck watching instead of covering his man. Again, not on Rask. He still had a .932 SV% that series and a .940 SV% (!!!) all playoffs. He likely would have won the Conn Smythe that year had Boston won.
Fun fact he also handed Crosby his only sweep ever until the 2019 playoffs that year with a .985 SV%.
Another fun fact is that he had a .938 in the four 2014 Olympics games he played and a .920 SV% in the two 2016 World Cup games he played.
The Bads (kinda?)
Now, he never peaked very high for very long, but he still has his 2014 Vezina season, his 2020 Vezina runner up year, and even his 2010 rookie season where he led the league in SV%. His GSAx (MoneyPuck) stats also have him second in the league in 2013 as well.
It is important to note that he did retire early due to injury and never had that downward trajectory that many other goalies have. But he still has 12 seasons with above average SV% which is more than anyone listed except for Fleury and Lu who both played 20 and 19 seasons respectively.
In terms of playoffs, his 2010 meltdown againt Philly sticks out, his 2014 series against Montreal sucked (although the first round against Detroit was a clinic), both his 2018 series aren't great. Game 7 of the SCF against St. Louis was bad but the other six games were good to great. His final series against the Isles sucked. But overall I'd say he's 12 for 17 in playoff series (worst case 10 for 17 depending on how you rate the 2019 finals and 2017 against Ottawa), that's still pretty good.
He also played on a very defensive Bruins team his whole career. How you adjust for that is going to be up to you. You surely can't blame him for that though.
Final Thoughts
Rask is maybe the most consistently good goalie of the 2010s. You can pretty much always count on him to put up an above average game.
His peak is also solid, a fist and a second Vezina season is great. Never was the best goalie in the world for more than one season at a time maybe, but who was when getting this far down the list? His playoffs are great, right about in line with his regular season performances if not a bit better - again, consistency.
On a personal note I also love his playstyle. You almost never caught him out of position, he was very calm in net, barely ever overreacted. Even if you watch his highlight reel desperation saves, it's never because he overcommited to a puck or flailed out of position and used his athleticism to recover (like Fleury for example), the saves are all from his puck tracking and fast reaction timing that were literally the most efficient way to make the stop. That kind of stability puts a team at ease.
