BOSTON (CBS) – Like defenseman Adam McQuaid and forward Seth Griffith before him during this uneven Bruins season, goaltender Malcolm Subban was put in a position to fail Friday night in St. Louis.

And Subban failed mightily against the Blues with just three saves on six shots faced, including no saves on three shots in the second period, in a 5-1 loss in his NHL debut.

Subban lasted just 25:09 of ice time before coach Claude Julien was forced to pull his rookie goaltender and insert Tuukka Rask for the 16th straight game.

To be fair, Griffith’s promotion from Providence of the American Hockey League to Boston’s first line was forced by injuries. And McQuaid’s promotion to the top four on defense once the Bruins’ defense corps got healthy was a risk worth taking because Boston thought that after several years of gaining experience in its bottom pair McQuaid could handle more responsibility. Neither Griffith nor McQuaid fit the bill for his new role.

The decision to start Subban in such an important game, or any NHL game in the 2014-15, lacked the proper reasoning. Subban is just 21 and his game with Providence this season has been inconsistent. There were stretches of this season when the P-Bruins leaned more on No. 2 goaltender Jeremy Smith. Back in November, Providence coach Bruce Cassidy had this to say about Subban’s play:

“An issue sometimes with Malcolm is details. And we tried to address that in practice verbally and sometimes you’ve got to do it with actions, hold people accountable. … He’s a guy that makes high-end athletic saves, saves that are NHL saves, but there’s other part of his game he needed to continue to work on and understand that it’s a body of work, not just a physical aspect of the game. The mental side needs to be addressed.”

It’s hard to believe that Subban ironed out all those problems in three months. And his NHL debut proved that he hadn’t.

Subban faced three shots in the first period. Then the first one he saw in the second period was a one-timer from the blue line by Petteri Lindbohm. The defenseman’s shot went off Subban’s glove and into the net to tie the score 1-1. It was easy to look at that goal as a physical miscue by Subban, but there was a mental gaffe as well. He clearly wasn’t ready for the Blues to win a faceoff and pass the puck twice in four seconds. It cost him and revved the Blues’ collective engine.

The second goal was just as poorly played by Subban. Alex Pietrangelo beat the Bruins goaltender from outside the left hash mark to the far side, as Subban failed to be ready, failed to position himself correctly and, in short, looked like an AHL goaltender playing in against the NHL’s fifth-best offense.

It took just one more shot – a rocket by T.J. Oshie – to get the Blues another goal and for Julien to make a goaltender switch. In the young professional career of Subban, who re-entered to play the last 4:56 of the game, this this was low point. But it wasn’t completely his fault. The Bruins had no business putting him in against the Blues or any NHL team. They have another backup goaltender, Niklas Svedberg, who has hardly played this season. Like Subban, they’ve put Svedberg a position to fail, and it’s baffling why they decided to make matters worse by rushing Subban.

The Bruins under Chiarelli have shown extreme patience with almost everything, no matter how ineffective. It took until Game 58 of the season for the Bruins to scratch one-goal wonder Daniel Paille. They’ve put up with Dennis Seidenberg’s discombobulated play all season and Matt Bartkowski’s error-filled play for the better part of two seasons. They’ve been patient with Gregory Campbell’s deterioration. They’ve put up with the growing pains of some of their younger players up front and on the back end this season and last. These are only this season’s examples of patience that seemingly last forever.

But the 25-year-old Svedberg gets 13 games, puts up average statistics and the Bruins panic and give a start to Subban on a night when the idle Florida Panthers were sitting just one point back of the second Eastern Conference wild card. It’s mind-blowing that Svedberg, who has a 5-5-0 record with a 2.43 goals-against average and .915 save percentage has lost the Bruins’ faith already. He’s been known to go weeks without starts. And, oh by the way, when the Bruins’ defense was playing poorly in front of Rask, it was doing the same in front of Svedberg.

But Svedberg comes back from a respectable showing in his AHL conditioning stint, makes one shaky start, gets pulled and suddenly the Bruins are looking down their organizational depth chart. It makes little sense. Without an alternative veteran goaltender available in the organization or via trade, the Bruins should have stuck with Svedberg instead of asking way too much of Subban.

The Bruins are going to hope that Subban will learn a lesson from this experience. He’s proven resilient in the past.

The bigger concern is whether the Bruins have learned anything about their plan, their organizational depth and what they have to do between now and the March 2 trade deadline to prevent a playoff-less spring.