Going into Sunday’s matchup with the Montreal Canadiens, some questioned Claude Julien’s logic of starting Tuukka Rask in back to back nights. On the season, he entered the game with an 0-2-2 record in the second game of a back-to-back to go along with a 2.55 goals against average and a .916 save percentage.

As pedestrian as his numbers in back to back were, Rask’s career stats against the Bruins’ hated rivals were that much worse entering Sunday: 3-10-3, 2.76 goals against average and .902 save percentage.

All of this suggested that Malcolm Subban should’ve gotten the nod for his first career start. Yet, in the last regular season matchup between the two rivals, Julien decided to start Rask, who came off a stellar 39-save performance the previous night in the Bruins’ 2-1 win over the Islanders.

Julien made the right decision. Rask was solid again with 31 saves against the Habs. It just so happens that his team hung him out to dry as the Habs swept the season series for the first time since the 2007-08 season with their 3-1 win at TD Garden.

The Bruins bench boss also had a message for those naysayers when he was asked about Rask’s performance.

“Do you guys really think he played poorly,” Julien said to the press.

“I thought he played well. You know, the winning goal is a terrible goal to give up. Two defensemen colliding in the o-zone, and like I said, we have a tendency to shoot ourselves in the foot for whatever reason against them and the kind of goals we give them are certainly not the kind of goals you see from our team most of the time.”

In the two goals he allowed, Rask deserved no blame at all. The tallies by Dale Weise and Max Pacioretty to start the second and third periods, respectively, resulted in poor defense. Weise was left all alone in front with Zdeno Chara and Patrice Bergeron watching as Rask left a harmless rebound. The second tally saw Chara collide with Hamilton that led to Pacioretty scoring his 24th of the season on a breakaway.

Those goals were just a small sample of the Bruins problems on Sunday night. The Black and Gold were beat to loose pucks, got outworked and made things easy for Carey Price (33 saves) when they had their chances.

“It’s always frustrating when you play a good game and fall short, but it’s a team game and we battle through these things together,” Rask stated during his postgame interview with the media. “It’s a loss, of course against Montreal so it doesn’t make the record better, but I feel like my game is in the right place and just keep plugging away.

Simply put, the Habs got the Bruins frustrated again, and at this point, the rivalry is simply one-sided in favor of the hated rivals from up north.

“We saw in the past that it doesn’t really make a difference if you’re thinking about playoffs right? Who knows, but playoffs is a different time of the year,” Chara stated. “Anything can happen, but for sure we should remember that these kinds of games, like I said nobody is happy about and we want to get them back.”