Some eyebrows were raised last week when Tuukka Rask was spotted on the ice at Warrior Ice Arena going through some drills and testing out his surgically repaired hip. It was a reminder that Rask’s potential return to the Bruins is not all that far away, with Rask previously saying he could be ready by Christmas or early January.
Whether the Bruins actually end up signing Rask remains to be seen. How his return would impact Linus Ullmark and Jeremy Swayman also remains to be seen.
Making his weekly appearance on Gresh & Keefe on Thursday, NESN analyst Andrew Raycroft discussed the Bruins’ goaltending situation and a possible Rask return, and he laid out one possibility that would allow the Bruins to get Rask into some games and see how he does before actually committing to signing him for the rest of the season.
“Just spitballing it with a couple agents, to get around not signing that contract right away and not putting him on the books until he’s completely ready, you could technically sign him to a PTO, a player tryout agreement, and have him work off of that,” Raycroft explained. “I think they last two weeks at a time. There are PTOs in the NHL and in the AHL, so technically if you wanted to have him play games in the AHL, you could sign him to that PTO down there. That was a few of the ideas I got. I don’t know what the real end game is, but it will be interesting to see how they can work and maneuver that.”
Raycroft also broke down the play of Swayman and Ullmark so far this season and discussed the possibility of sending Swayman to the AHL if and when Rask returns. Listen to the full interview below:
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