Before the Bruins got their rear ends handed to them in their worst loss of the season Wednesday, the spotlight was already on Tim Thomas. 

It’s a spotlight that Thomas has asked for – and welcomed – yet he has seemed shocked when it finds him. The reigning Vezina winner’s political Facebook fest has led many to have opinions about him, and for the second time in a matter of weeks, he’s taken the attention off the team and put it on himself. 

There’s nothing wrong with having strong political views and Thomas can get the message out there better than your average non-celebrity. Famous people of all shapes and sizes do it all the time, and they have every right to do so. Yet Thomas – who has made his beliefs very public – is unwilling to acknowledge that he’s doing so, which raises the question: What’s the point?

Twice now Thomas has put his opinion out there (the first time by skipping the White House and posting about it on Facebook, and the second time with a perceived post about birth control), but when asked about it, he’s slammed the door on any such talk. He blamed the media for all the ruckus the first time, and wouldn’t make a peep the second time. 

That’s where the whole thing gets confusing. If Thomas is using his celebrity to get his message out – which he’s clearly doing – why does he keep denying that he and blaming the media for the attention he’s welcomed?

Thomas posted the following on Wednesday:

“I Stand with the Catholics in the fight for Religious Freedom.

‘In Germany they came first for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time no one was left to speak up."

-- by Martin Niemöller, prominent German anti-Nazi theologian and Lutheran pastor, best known as the author of the poem First they came....’”

After the team’s 6-0 loss to the Sabres, and after he was asked all questions about the game, a reporter began to ask a question about the post. Thomas stopped him short.

“That's my personal life,” he said. “I won't be talking about that. It has absolutely nothing to do with the game of hockey.”

Thomas was then asked about the attention that his political statements have brought about. 

“That's my personal life,” Thomas repeated. “I won't be commenting on that. It has nothing to do with the game of hockey or my job as a Boston Bruin.”

Thomas also declined to acknowledge whether Wednesday’s Facebook post was about President Obama’s decision to require religious organizations to include birth control coverage in their health care plans. 

Thomas is a very bright guy, so it’s hard to believe that he honestly thinks his Facebook page – a public page, and not a private account – is his personal life. Do you know what you need to access the page? Fingers. Fingers that can plug facebook.com/TimThomasOfficialPage into a computer or phone. It’s for everyone to see. As of the time this was written, 9, 934 people “liked” the page. 

And if Thomas’ very public personal page is actually personal, why are all of his profile pictures of him wearing his Bruins uniform or holding the Stanley Cup? He’s putting his message out there for thousands to see, so he can’t act surprised when thousands see it. 

With Thomas once again making a statement and declining to elaborate on or stand behind it, the attention is on him. If Thomas would simply say that he feels very strongly about the issues, that would be it. He would be like Andrew Ference is to an extent, the politically outspoken hockey player. No more and no less. The way he’s doing it right now, every time he posts something political on Facebook, it becomes a controversy.

A DOWNRIGHT DISASTER 

There was nothing to like about the Bruins’ game Wednesday night. They said after the drubbing that they liked their first period (and relative to the rest of the game, their first 20 minutes wasn’t that bad), but Wednesday was one of those rare nights in which nothing went right for the Bruins. 

Their lone goal was disallowed on a horrid call. Both goaltenders got lit up. The defense was abhorrent (even Zdeno Chara was a minus-3, his worst rating since Nov. 5, 2010), and they didn’t have a single power play. 

“It’s been a while since we’ve had a loss like this,” Milan Lucic said after the game. “Maybe it’s for the best. Maybe it’s a wakeup call and shows that we need to be much better and can’t take anyone lightly, no matter who they are. For some reason, you look at the teams we’ve lost to this year. They're teams that aren’t in a playoff position, so it’s up to us to get up for every opponent.”

Lucic is right. The Bruins have lost 17 games in regulation this season, and 12 of them came against teams that are not currently in line for a playoff spot. While an optimist will say that won’t matter in the playoffs, it’s certainly alarming that a team that was at one point the best in hockey can routinely get trounced by some of the worst teams the NHL has to offer. 

Things fell apart for the B’s on Wednesday, but it’s hard not to wonder whether things would have been different had referee Rob Martell not waved off Lucic’s game-tying goal in the first period over supposed contact between Rich Peverley and Ryan Miller. 

“It’s just one of those games that the bounces didn’t go our way,” Lucic said. “A perfectly good goal gets taken away from us, but we’re not a team that is going to make excuses and whine about stuff. It’s on us.”

Claude Julien had a little more to say on the play in which Peverley barely touched Miller’s arm outside the crease. 

“The thing that may be a little bit disappointing is when you make those kind of calls, you’ve got to be 100 percent sure what it was,” Julien said. “When you look back that the replay, it’s not even close. So that’s disappointing because that’s a 1-1 hockey game at that point, but it’s certainly not the reason that we lost the game tonight.”

Unfortunately for the Bruins, the list of reasons as to why they lost the game was way too long. David Krejci’s struggles continued as the one-time first-line center totaled one shot on goal, a minus-2 rating and went 2-for-10 on faceoffs. Tuukka Rask saw his winless streak reach four games (0-3-1) and for the fifth time in his last six games allowed three goals. The team let Patrick Kaleta get to them. Even Chris Kelly and Patrice Bergeron, who dominated the faceoff circle (10-for-10 and 18-for-22, respectively) couldn’t avoid having their lines scored on multiple times. 

So now, after they thought they had taken positive strides in recent games, the Bruins, who are 7-7-1 over their last 15 games, go back to the drawing board. With games against actual good teams – Nashville Saturday and the Rangers Tuesday – coming up, they had better figure it out fast.