Respect Tuukka Rask’s decision, even if its timing wasn’t ideal

It might reveal a few more answers, too, because right now much remains unanswered and uncertain. When news came late Saturday morning that Rask was opting out, it was shocking in the sense that in normal times such a decision – a key player leaving a championship-contending team without providing detailed clarity about why beyond that he needed to be with his family – would be regarded as sports treason. I can’t remember a player of Rask’s magnitude ever making such a decision with the professional stakes so high. Defensive back Vontae Davis quitting at halftime of a Bills game a few years ago certainly is not that same thing.

But these are not normal times, as perhaps you have noticed during any of the last 150 or so days. The Eastern Conference playoff teams are isolated in a thus far COVID-19 proof bubble in Toronto, away from their families, for the next several weeks for the sake of giving us some semblance of, yes, normalcy, as if hockey in August is normal.

We knew Rask was having a hard time with this when he mentioned after the Bruins’ Game 2 loss, with his usual candor and a shrug, that this just didn’t feel like the playoffs. Bruins general manager Don Sweeney acknowledged to the media Saturday morning that the Bruins weren’t totally caught off guard.

“We understand completely where Tuukka is coming from,” said Sweeney. “I don’t think it’s any big surprise to us, to be honest. We were privy to some information before the rest of the public. This has been a difficult decision for Tuukka. But the Boston Bruins are in full support of why he made this decision.”

Perhaps it will difficult for Rask to return to the Bruins for the final year of his contract next season; it’s possible that there is a quiet minority of teammates angry that he left them who will be slow to forgive. We will learn more specifics about his reasons for leaving over time, but we shouldn’t be so cynical as to doubt that he’s risking alienating his teammates for a very simple and human reason: He was lonely and misses his family.

Rask has a wife and three young children at home, including a 4-month-old. It’s hard to be away, to miss those times, even a few brief days, when your kids are young. I still often think about the look on my 5-year-old daughter’s face when I picked her up at school upon returning from a 23-day assignment away from home in 2010. She didn’t know I was back, and when she saw me and came running over, it was hard to tell which of our tears were joyful and which were due to the sadness of the time that was lost. I’m sure Rask’s kids are happy to have their dad home, and I’d bet they have let him know it.

We just don’t know the full depths of what he’s dealing with, and it’s worth remembering that everyone is navigating the chaos of the world in their own way, even world-famous hockey goalies. It certainly looks from the outside that the longer he was in the bubble, the more difficult it became for him to justify being there. His teammates seemed to understand. “We’re behind him,’’ said Patrice Bergeron. “Family comes first.”

It is to the Bruins’ great credit that they did not let the news wobble them, and perhaps Rask’s departure was even easier to accept after the way they played. It’s not as if Sweeney had to reach out to 49-year-old Blaine Lacher to come mind the net. Jaroslav Halak, who is more the 1B to Rask’s 1A than a conventional backup – he had 18 wins and 2.39 goals against average in 31 games this season – is a fine guy to have around, an accomplished goalie in his own right who was ready for the moment.

Halak stopped 15 shots in the first period without allowing a goal, helping to set the tone. The Hurricanes’ only goal was a gift in the third period when Halak made a terrible attempt at a clearing pass, but there wasn’t much suspense beyond that. He’s not Rask, owner of the 11th-best goals against average in NHL history (2.26), but he’s not going to be in over his head. He looked Sunday an awful lot like the version of himself that helped the No. 8-seeded Canadiens stun the Penguins and Capitals in a run to the Eastern Conference finals 10 years ago.

Maybe you can tell, but I’ve always liked Rask, enigma that he is, a quirky dude even by goalie standards. He’s a straight shooter with the media at a time when everyone complains athletes are too guarded and reserved. He always struck me as a generous person – he was one of the Boston athletes who made sure to keep in contact with John Martin, the NESN cameraman who passed away from ALS in 2018.

There is an element of fans that like to complain that he’s incapable of winning the big one, but he must have been doing something right along the way even to get to Stanley Cup Finals in 2013 and 2019. (He was Tim Thomas’s backup in ’11.) Funny how the people most outraged by his decision to leave are the same ones who thought he was incapable of winning a Cup.

Perhaps this would have been the year. But Rask made his decision to prioritize his personal life over trying to win a giant sports trophy, and in this year of all years that should be understandable. Yes, Rask took the exit out of Toronto, but the Bruins bubble has not burst. All of them deserve to be happy today.

Chad Finn can be reached at chad.finn@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @GlobeChadFinn.