Hot and not

James Reimer, San Jose Sharks

Reimer stood tall against the Minnesota Wild, stopping all 29 shots he faced in a 3-0 win. It's his third shutout of the season, with all three coming in his past seven starts.

Tuukka Rask, Boston Bruins

Rask allowed only one goal before the shootout, but took the loss in the Bruins' 2-1 defeat at the hands of the Carolina Hurricanes. Rask has now lost three of his past four starts, including being pulled from a loss to Chicago last weekend.

Are the Boston Bruins' playoff chances doomed?

@ESPN_Burnside: The next 48 hours are going to go a long way toward deciding the final playoff spots in the Eastern Conference. The Boston Bruins continue to flirt with disaster after dropping a 2-1 shootout decision to the Carolina Hurricanes on Tuesday, and they face the prospect of significant change within the team if they miss the playoffs two years in a row. They wake up Wednesday out of the playoffs, but tied with the Detroit Red Wings (currently in third place in the Atlantic Division) and Philadelphia Flyers (currently the second wild-card team) at 91 points apiece. The Bruins have only two games remaining, while Detroit has three and Philly has four. The Flyers are in Detroit on Wednesday evening, and then the Red Wings travel to Boston on Thursday. You want drama? You've got drama. You know the B's will be cheering for a regulation decision one way or the other between the Wings and Flyers, which would prevent each team from earning at least one point. If you're the Bruins, leaving a point on the table against non-playoff competition like the Canes puts them in a precarious position with little time left. So, how does it shake down in the next two days? I think the Bruins have waited too long and given themselves too little time and space to get back in.

@Real_ESPNLeBrun: What's interesting about their shootout defeat Tuesday is that it wasn't defense that killed the B's for once. Their blue-line play has been brutal at times this season, and definitely in recent games, but they played a decent defensive game in Carolina. Boston just forgot to score enough goals. Still, let's take a step back and pretend it's early October when we were all making predictions. Isn't this exactly where we had Boston? I know I had them as a bubble team, just missing out, but also thinking it wouldn't surprise me if they just barely got in. Well, that's exactly where they are. Because of their defensive issues, they're a team in transition and exactly who many of us thought they were. That's surely hard to accept if you're a Bruins fan and are remembering when the team was challenging for the Atlantic Division lead earlier this season, but the true reality is playing out now.

@CraigCustance: On some level, the Bruins have to be happy to extract one point from the Carolina game, because there were plenty of times it looked like it wouldn't happen. The Hurricanes hit a couple of posts. There was a puck that trickled past Tuukka Rask in the third period, but was swept away by Zdeno Chara, who arrived just a beat ahead of Elias Lindholm. Those are the games you need if you want to squeak into the playoffs, and if the Bruins miss, I'm sure we'll point to that shootout as one of the moments that helped a playoff berth slip away. The last thing the Bruins need is tonight's Flyers-Red Wings game finding its way to a shootout. Bruins fans will be rooting for regulation. That's what it has come down to for Boston.

Around the league