from Fluto Shinzawa of the Boston Globe,

For stretches of Wednesday’s third period, with his team staring at the goaltending equivalent of Mount Everest, Claude Julien considered pulling Tuukka Rask to throw an extra attacker at Braden Holtby.

Julien’s team, however, never gave him any indications that a sixth skater would even the playing field.

“I don’t think our team was doing enough for me to even have hope there with three minutes left to even get ourselves back in the game,” the Bruins coach said after the 3-0 loss. “When you sense it, you do it. When you don’t . . . we couldn’t even get to those loose pucks half the time. Whatever opportunity we had, we weren’t able to get that goal.”

Julien made the ultimate condemnation. He stopped believing in his team. Because of that, Julien chose to concede the result instead of emptying his coaching toolbox.

Julien is in an unusual position. Throughout his career in Boston, he’s been faithful to his players. Where other coaches would pull the trigger on benchings and line changes, Julien has been slow to take an eraser to his lineup.

Now, with only two games remaining in the regular season, Julien doesn’t know who to trust. It’s why he changed his lines before Wednesday’s game — a move that blew up in his face. By the third period, when Julien went back to the lines that had helped him win five straight games, the damage was done.

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