Bruins get sobering premonition of potential hurdles in net - and a diminished top line - in ugly night at TD Garden

When a relatively low-danger shot from Danton Heinen ricocheted off of Jeremy Swayman’s shoulder and trickled under twine, there were no boos or jeers emanating from the TD Garden crowd. 

Rather, it was the pained groan of acceptance — acceptance of the inevitable.

As we covered last month, Bruins fans are just naturally conditioned to expect the worst.

So the sight of a former Bruin making his old club pay on the scoresheet didn’t exactly come as much of a surprise to a fanbase that has seen such a scenario play out countless times before. 

But the timing of Heinen’s two-goal outburst on Tuesday night? Even the most pessimistic, hardened B’s fan had to think something nefarious was afoot when it came to just how quickly things fell apart for their club. 

The Penguins started to smell blood in the water out on the Garden sheet in the second period, but the ninth floor of the B’s barn had already devolved into a feeding frenzy — with sportswriters frantically hammering away at their keyboards and feverishly refreshing their browsers in hopes of salvation against a lagging wi-fi network.

All of the positive sentiment found in the first 20 minutes of Tuesday’s showdown against the Penguins dissipated as soon as The Athletic’s report on Tuukka Rask’s potential retirement started to spread like wildfire. 

Swayman, starting an NHL contest for the first time in over a month, was not cognizant of the social-media flurry and draining discourse playing out online as the Rask news broke.

And yet, in a true “Murphy’s Law” moment that even Bruins fans would dismiss as foolhardy fiction, it took only a few minutes after the Rask report to drop for the dam to break in net for the B’s.  

If the Bruins are going to weather such a setback in net with their potential trump card in Rask now longer in their deck, they’re going to need Swayman to stem the tide and form an effective tandem with Linus Ullmark. 

The rookie sure looked the part in the first period against Pittsburgh, turning aside all 10 shots that came his way. 

And then?

8:04: The Rask report breaks. 

8:09: The Penguins get on the board, with Heinen breaking through on a 2-on-1 bid and tucking a puck past Swayman. 

8:10: Heinen strikes again just 28 seconds later on a goal that the B’s rookie netminder will almost certainly want back.

In the immediate aftermath of Boston’s eventual 4-2 setback, Bruce Cassidy didn’t shed much light on Rask’s future, putting the ball in the player’s court when it comes to potential next steps.

"No, I think that's for Tuukka to comment on his (status)," Cassidy said. "I was told he wouldn't practice this week. I don't think that's changing at all. So if he has something to say, I think I'll leave it to him."

But if this is indeed the end for Rask — and the Bruins are still clinging to the hope of at least one more run with Patrice Bergeron and Co. in tow — then Boston is going to need much more from Swayman in the turbulent days ahead.

"Goaltending picks you up some nights and it can deflate you. I think we saw both in the second period," Cassidy said. "So it gets away from us a little bit. … They got saves, we didn't. That's it, that's my take. We had probably more chances than them that period. Did we make some mistakes in front of our goaltender? Yes. 

“I don't think we made a mistake on the second goal. Was kind of a bad one. The first one, like I said, we didn't have clear possession coming through the neutral zone, our D activated. Which we don't mind, but you have to have possession. And we didn't defend the two-on-one. I'm not sure what we're thinking on that.”

A future without Rask serving as a safety net between the pipes is a foreign feeling for many Bruins fans — who, between Rask and Tim Thomas before him — have been buoyed by elite goaltending through two separate contention windows.

Bumps in the road are to be expected as the pressure now falls on the shoulders of Swayman and Ullmark to hold the line in net. But all things considered, the B’s at least have a contingency plan in place if Rask does indeed hang up his skates. 

What the B’s aren’t prepared for — both this season and especially in the years ahead — is Patrice Bergeron no longer anchoring Boston’s top line. 

Murphy’s Law, once again. 

Already facing questions about the state of his goalie corps, Cassidy had little in terms of updates in regards to Boston’s captain, who exited the game in the third period after slamming his head against the boards following an awkward collision with Sidney Crosby. 

"Upper body. I don't know if the concussion guy took him out, the way he went into the boards," Cassidy said of Bergeron. "I wouldn't be surprised, when they're down like that, that's typically what happens. I did not speak to him. He didn't come back to the bench. Went in the training room, he wasn't there.  So that's about all I got for right now. Hopefully, he's okay." 

No Rask and no Bergeron? Could it get much worse?

Of course, it can — with the aforementioned epigram once again taking root in the closing seconds of Tuesday’s miserable contest. 

The Bruins will be holding out hope that Bergeron dodged a bullet with his fall in the final frame. But such guarded optimism doesn’t carry over to Bergeron's linemate in Brad Marchand, who will likely have another sitdown with the NHL Department of Player Safety after absolutely losing it against Penguins netminder Tristan Jarry in garbage time.

In the short term, the Bruins at least had a sliver of hope when it came to gutting out points without Bergeron, so long as Marchand was available to serve as Boston’s on-ice adrenaline shot.  Such doesn’t seem to the case now, especially given Marchand’s extensive rap sheet as a repeat offender in league disciplinary circles. 

“Honestly, lack of discipline obviously on Brad's part in that situation,” Cassidy said. “I just watched the replay at the end, it looks like some words were exchanged. I don't know if there's an incident at the end of the second period that precipitated. I was in the room, so I don't know, someone said that. Still, gotta have discipline. Brad's a leader on our team and he needs to control his emotions in that situation."

So … where do the Bruins go from here? 

Barring a complete plummet in the standings, the Bruins have separated themselves from the pack when it comes to the teams outside of the playoff bubble.

The B’s had high hopes for Rask, but the signing of Ullmark indicated that the franchise wanted to have all of its bases covered in case plans went awry. 

But with a P.O.’d Hurricanes team coming to town on Thursday — and just 38 games left on the regular-season docket — the Bruins are now looking to pick up the pieces with a goalie corps knocked back to square one, and both Bergeron and Marchand potentially out for the next little while.

Even for the most masochistic B’s fan, such a scenario sure seems like the ninth circle of misery.