For the first time in his NHL career, Tim Thomas had become an afterthought.
Last month, as Tuukka Rask grabbed the starting job, Thomas found a home on the Bruins bench for six straight games. Thomas then traveled to Vancouver, where he backed up US goalie Ryan Miller for all but 10-plus minutes of Olympic action. Upon his return to Boston, Thomas played No. 2 to Rask for one more game.
Finally, last night was Thomas’s turn. He didn’t disappoint.
Returning to his TD Garden crease for the first time since Feb. 2, Thomas sparkled for 65 minutes against Toronto, repeatedly bailing out his leaky defense - the pairing of Dennis Wideman and Matt Hunwick was especially toxic - to send the game into the shootout.
Thomas (24 saves, most of them on high-quality shots) then foiled Phil Kessel, Jamie Lundmark, and Tyler Bozak, capping the Bruins’ 3-2 shootout win over the Maple Leafs with a series of fist pumps as his teammates swarmed around him for a well-deserved round of congratulations while 17,565 TD Garden fans hailed the reigning Vezina Trophy winner.
“I’m not going to lie - it feels really good right now,’’ said Thomas, who hadn’t won a game since Jan. 14. “First win I’ve had in long time. First win we’ve had at home in a long time. First win we’ve had at home in a shootout in a long time.
“For a number of different reasons, I feel pretty good right now. The whole team feels good.’’
Earlier this week, Claude Julien told Thomas that he’d be starting last night. It just so happened that Rask was unavailable because of a knee injury (the rookie is considered day-to-day).
“He wasn’t coming in to replace Tuukka; he was scheduled to play,’’ said the coach. “When I talked to him the other day, I told him the same thing. I said, ‘You’re a Vezina Trophy winner. You don’t go from being a great goaltender to a bad goaltender. The whole organization here, your teammates, your coaches, upper management - we all believe in you. You’ve just got to go out there, have fun playing again, and do the job you’ve always done.’
“It was nice to see him respond well. Tonight, I made sure he knew that he’d played a great game.’’
The Bruins, losers of the first 10 Garden games in 2010, were facing a supposed pushover in the Maple Leafs, the NHL’s second-worst team. Prior to the trading deadline, the Leafs shed their final spare parts when they traded Alexei Ponikarovsky to Pittsburgh for prospect Luca Caputi and veteran Martin Skoula. They then flipped Skoula to New Jersey for a 2010 fifth-round pick, while 21-year-old Caputi made his Toronto debut last night.
