A collapse in judgment

Another bad loss adds to chatter

Facing an opponent they had dominated in the past, in front of 17,000-plus psyched-up fans, in a game they absolutely, positively had to win, all the Bruins had to do last night at the Garden was win the third period.

With the score tied after a see-saw first 40 minutes, the Bruins’ job was simply to outplay and outscore Tampa Bay, a likely nonplayoff team missing its best player, over the final 20 minutes.

Do that, and the threegame losing streak — and the growing talk of a third successive late-season collapse — would be over.

The Bruins lost the third period, 3-0.

They lost the game, 6-3.

And the talk as the B’s losing streak reached four — after probably the worst all-round performance since the coaching change — was about how difficult it’s going to be for the B’s to get in the playoffs unless they get their act together, and quickly.

“In the third period, you’ve got a tie game in your building, in a critical game,” said Bruins forward David Backes. “You expect to have that jump. It (wasn’t) good enough, from top to bottom. I’ll be the first guy to point fingers in my chest and say I need to be better.

“(Last night) was certainly not our best — at that time of year when you need your best to win, no matter who you’re playing against or what the circumstances may be. This one certainly hurts.

“The (loss) in Ottawa (Monday) was maybe a notch under, but I thought we gave ourselves a chance to win. Other than that we’ve played pretty good hockey under Bruce (Cassidy). But now is not the time for us to not give ourselves a chance to win.

“We’ve got eight games left, and they all have to be good ones — (or) great ones.”

The Bruins were a long way from great last night, and not even close to good. They did some good things in claiming leads of 1-0, 2-1 and 3-2 — although, to be honest, each of the Bruins’ goals relied on fortuitous bounces off Lightning sticks or bodies. And, each time the Bruins quickly gave the lead right back.

One of the key lessons a hockey player has to learn is situational awareness, which means being cognizant of the score of the game and the time on the clock — and making appropriate on-ice decisions. It means after you score a big goal, you clamp down with even greater focus and concentration to protect that lead. That was not the Bruins last night: Barely a minute and a half after going up 3-2 late in the second, all three Bruins forwards were caught deep in the offensive zone and the Tampa Bay transitioned quickly to level the score on a 3-on-2.

Cassidy felt the lack-offocus criticism also applied to goalie Tuukka Rask, who stopped 23-of-28 shots.

“He needed to be better,” Cassidy said. “We need to be better in front of him. He needed to be better on some of those goals. What are we? March 23? Really, our focus needs to be there. You hope it’s more fatigue than focus at this time of the year. But I can only speculate.”

As is usually the case, Rask did not duck the criticism.

“We got the lead, but they came back on us every single time,” he said. “It was just embarrassing. That’s the last thing you need and everybody knows it, that that’s the last mistake you want to make. To happen three times in one game is inexcusable.

“A goalie has to make a couple of extra stops there. I didn’t. So that’s part of my job, to accept the fact that sometimes it’s your fault. A couple of times I should have made a save. It happens sometimes.”

It would be crazy to pin a loss like this entirely on the All-Star goalie — not with the wide-open looks the Lightning shooters received. Rask and his teammates have to be better — and immediately — or these final weeks could be mighty painful.

“You look at overall how we’ve played team defense the last couple of weeks, I think it’s starting to slip a little bit,” Rask said. “The goals that are being scored, a lot of them are right in front of the net or around the slot area. At this point of the season we need to tighten up and prevent those kind of goals.”

At this point in the season, if they’re truly a playoff team, they need to be better in every way.