Tuukka Rask, goalie for the NHL's Boston Bruins, recently reached the massive milestone of playing in his 500th game. The team's all-time winningest goaltender received a celebratory surprise as he was presented with a replica drum kit of Metallica's Lars Ulrich prior to the start of the game.

The pro hockey player is a professed Metallica fan and Ulrich's drum tech, Jimmy Clark, shared a few photos of the special moment on Facebook (seen below), expressing his delight in being able to present Rask with the kit that was purchased by the player's teammates.

The Bruins also shared a nearly three-minute clip of former teammates congratulating Rask on the milestone achievement, with Ulrich dedicated a message at the very end of clip.

"Hey Tuukka. Lars Ulrich of Metallica hitting you — congratulations on 500 (500!?) NHL games. That is crazy cool and incredible. So thank you for being a Metallica fan. So on behalf of Kirk [Hammett], James [Hetfield] and Rob [Trujillo] and myself, congratulations on 500 NHL games and we'll see you out there somewhere soon," said the drummer.

In the clip below, the goalie expressed his love for the metal legends, naming Metallica as his favorite band while recollecting a very special time he was the band play in Finland.

"Well I don't listen to music more than in my car and in the locker room. I listen to everything, but my favorite band is Metallica — I love them," said Rask.

"The first time it was in Finland and I had never seen them live and I had got to know Aerosmith's tour manager who knew somebody from Metallica and they hooked us up with tickets, so we ended up watching the concert from the side stage in the tower," he said, adding, "So we were kind of looking at the crowd and looking at the band below us, so that was just a fantastic experience to see Metallica. Then a couple months ago we saw Metallica in Boston."

Watch Rask's surprised reaction as he's presented with Ulrich's replica kit.

As Ulrich said, Metallica will be back out on the road soon. The band has a number of world tour dates and U.S. festival appearances booked and frontman James Hetfield, who entered rehab last year, is set to make a public appearance at a recently announced car museum exhibit. Head here to get tickets to any of the band's upcoming gigs.

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