At certain times, the 2014-15 Boston Bruins have made their losses look like a form of art.

That sentiment held true when Tuukka Rask tried to hold the fort to send Monday’s game with the Calgary Flames into a shootout. Instead, T.J. Brodie scored on a backhander from an impossible angle – with Brad Marchand defending – after the puck tipped off the top of Rask’s glove, then his back, before hitting the back of the net.

“He shot it and it hit Marshy’s shaft and I bent myself to grab it and it hit off the top of the glove, and it bounced back,” Rask recalled to reporters about the winning goal. “Can’t do anything differently there.”

Brodie got the bounce to give the Flames the 4-3 win in overtime, a game where the Bruins held a 3-0 lead at one point. A game where Rask and company appeared to right the ship after coming in losers of three straight and four of their last five. A game that had a promising start that included a great shorthanded goal by Marchand on a 2-on-1 with Patrice Bergeron, a rocket of a one-timer from a “washed up” Zdeno Chara, and a backhander from Torey Krug following through after Reilly Smith whiffed on his attempt.

A game where the Bruins chased Karri Ramo turned into a game they chased themselves thanks to the same defensive breakdowns and miscommunication that’s plagued them throughout the season.

“Same thing, extremely sloppy and totally out of sync, and you give the other team some confidence and some momentum and you’re pedaling backwards here,” head coach Claude Julien said to the press. “That was the thing that was disappointing, but at the same time a couple of goals there that end up behind Tuukka. I thought he played a real good game. A little bit of bad luck there on his part, with pucks going in behind him, and again when things are tough, things are tough.”

Monday’s loss was just another example of the personnel issues plaguing this team, particularly on the blue line. Julien tried to shake things up again with his inconsistent defense by inserting Matt Bartkowski into the lineup for the first time since the B’s New Year’s Eve tilt with the Toronto Maple Leafs. The result was more of the same, and Bartkowski was not on the ice in the last seven-plus minutes of regulation.

Clearly the loss of Johnny Boychuk continues to haunt the Black and Gold. That decision by Peter Chiarelli will be questioned for quite some time and things aren’t getting much better as the trade deadline approaches.

Chiarelli and company will have their hands full on trying to acquire a piece or two at the deadline thanks to having just under $1 million in cap space. That is a story for another time, though.

For now, the Bruins have to work with what they have, and clearly it hasn’t been good enough during the month of February. They now enter what many already consider a must win game against the Edmonton Oilers Wednesday night – with Malcolm Subban likely getting the start – in the third game of their five-game road trip.

What the B’s have right now is a cast that is not ready for primetime. A loss to the Oilers, however, could be rock bottom for the 2014-15 version of the Black and Gold.