The Bruins have said time and time again that their intention is to give Tuukka Rask more than the 27 starts he got last season, but how about giving him some offense?

The Bruins’ goaltending situation always yields an interesting debate, but this is going to be a long season if the B’s produce more of the same in front of Rask, as they did in Monday’s 1-0 loss to the Avalanche. 

“He’s probably the only bright light on this game,” Claude Julien said of the 24-year-old goaltender. “Had it not been for him, this game could have probably been over much sooner than it was. And he kept us in there and gave us a chance and we just didn’t respond.”

Last season, the Bruins scored over half a goal more in front of Tim Thomas than they did in front of Rask. In games started by Thomas, the B’s scored an average of 3.21 goals per game, which would have placed them well ahead of the Canucks’ 3.15 for tops in the league during the regular season. In front of Rask, they managed only 2.55 goals per game, which would have put them in a tie with the Kings for sixth-worst in the league (stick-tap to the WEEI.com stat truck for the numbers). 

On Monday, the 2011-12 Bruins played a lot like they did a season ago in front of Rask. It’s hard to not notice the trend, but Rask isn’t concerned this early in the season. 

“That’s what happened, right?” Rask said of the team losing a low-scoring game. “But still, a win is all that matters. It doesn’t matter if you lost 10-0 or 1-0, it’s still a loss. But we definitely didn’t play a full 60 minute effort today, that’s for sure.”

So, what's the difference? As Monday’s loss showed, the Bruins can show up when it comes to clearing out pucks in front of Rask, but when it comes to putting burying opportunities on the other end, the struggles are very real. 

“It sucks,” Milan Lucic, whose line has struggled out of the gate, said Monday. “On the other end, we can't reward him for his efforts. That's on us, and you feel like you let him down. I know he can walk away with his head high knowing that he played well.”

It will be interesting to see how Rask is used, if at all, in the Bruins’ upcoming two-game road trip to Carolina and Chicago. The Bruins want to play him more in his third season, and he was the team’s best player on the ice Monday in a loss to a very young and beatable Colorado squad. The Avalanche’s lone goal came when a Milan Hejduk wrist shot through a screen bounced off Zdeno Chara and past the Bruins’ netminder.

Aside from that third-period tally, Rask had a strong performance. He and a trio of Patrice Berergeron, Dennis Seidenberg and Andrew Ference weathered a 27-second, 5-on-3 early in the game’s first five minutes, and for someone who hadn’t played in a game that meant something since April 10 of last season, it was a good way of breaking him in. 

“It’s never good when you go down two men,” Rask said, “but if you survive that with no goals against, you gain that confidence in yourself.”

Two years removed from leading the league in both goals against average and save percentage, confidence doesn’t seem to be an issue for Rask, but then again, nor does anything else. The issue remains getting goals in front of him, and getting him wins that reflect his level of play. Last season, Rask had only 11. 

“We want to help him a lot more than [we do],” Patrice Bergeron said Monday. “He's helping us every night he steps in.”

Through two games, Thomas has also been sharp (three goals allowed), so while the personnel has remained the same, the Bruins’ are in a bit of a different situation than they were three games in last year. Rask opened last season with a shaky performance in which the guys in front of him were dreadful. Thomas went about claiming the starting job with a shutout the next day in Prague. Now that both goaltenders have played an shown what they have to offer, one thing that seems pretty clear is that the Bruins have to offer more in front of Rask. 

“What can you do?” Rask said. “It’s the first game of the year, it happens a few times a year and obviously it gets kind of frustrating but I’m not worried about it yet.”