Tim Thomas: Did the Boston Bruins Give Him Enough Rest Down the Stretch?

In 10 full-length periods of postseason hockey, Boston Bruins goaltender Tim Thomas has yet to allow multiple goals within a single stanza this spring. He has yet to concede a multi-goal deficit and is fostering a 1.47 goals against average and .943 save percentage.

These trends are, as always, subject to change. But until that happens, there is no reason to think the masked man they call “Tank” is not sufficiently fueled.

April 3 and April 5 were the first two times the Bruins did not dress Thomas for a regular season or playoff game since Dec. 15, 2007. That brought a hard-earned, long-awaited and much-needed end to 431 straight game nights spent taking warmup shots and then manning the door on the far right of the bench and/or staring down opposing biscuits.

When the Bruins made their last positive U-turn of the regular season in mid-March en route to a 9-2-1 finish, Thomas was in net for eight of those final 12 games, posting a 6-1-1 log in that span.

Over the two weeks leading up to the playoff opener, he saw action in three games, sandwiching the final tuneup on April 7 with one set of five off-days and another set of four.

All he did after that four-day breather was out-duel Washington counterpart Braden Holtby for a 1-0 overtime victory in Game 1. And Thomas lent an affirmative answer to any uncertainty of resisting rust tacked by two question marks when he retained his sharpness after the protracted period of preparation, followed by only five first-period and two second-period shots.

Thomas ought to have enough to hold up for the balance of the Eastern Conference quarterfinals. Whether the Bruins allowed him to store up enough for anything remotely reminiscent of last year’s banner campaign will only be answered if they return to the third, let alone fourth round.

Having turned 38 years of age between Games 2 and 3 this past weekend, Thomas is second only to Brian Rolston at the top of Boston’s existence leaderboard. He is the eldest among Bruins holdovers from last season and, due in part to colleague Tuukka Rask’s injury in a March 3 game, had his heaviest regular-season workload since 2006-07 with 59 appearances.

For a time in 2011-12, namely from about New Year’s Eve to the week leading into St. Patrick’s Day, it appeared as though Thomas’ peerlessly laborious 2010-11 season and short offseason was finally catching up to him.

For the past month, though, his humanity has jutted out less. Part of that is owed to the degree of rest he received once the Northeast Division crown was locked away.

In the same vein, the best way for the Bruins to ensure Thomas sustains his energy is by locking away the Washington Capitals at the earliest possible time. If they polish off the conference quarterfinals within the next two, or even three games, preferably all in regulation, that will mean at least four or five days between the first-round handshake and the second-round faceoff.

Thomas was subjected to playing all but eight of Boston’s 1,550 minutes of postseason action in 2011, including a cumulative 50 minutes and 56 seconds of overtime. That virtually constitutes a bonus game on top of the 25 official outings.

Already in this Washington series, he has worked 23 minutes and 14 seconds of extra time, nearly two-thirds of the total overtime (36:45) from last year’s seven-game first round bout with Montreal.

It’s on Thomas' skating mates to buck that trend without fail. Head coach Claude Julien gave him sufficient rest for at least the short run when the last regular season games lost their meaning.

As soon as the playoffs commenced, that option closed up shop for the summer, along with the overtime point and the shootout. The only way Thomas will be getting those valuable breathers now is by the team cutting back on the marathon games, Game 6s and Game 7s.