"I don't know what it is," said Phil Kessel, whose mates have dropped seven straight to the Canadiens and six of the last eight here. "Right now, we've been struggling against them."
Right now, after nearly a fortnight on the road with more to come, the Bruins are struggling generally, dropping three of their last four, including Wednesday's killer overtime loss at New Jersey with a squandered three-goal lead. They're without their top two goalies, without a couple of regular defensemen, without last season's No. 2 scorer.
They're dizzy from hopscotching airports and leg-weary from five games in eight nights, with three more road shows coming up. "There's definitely mental fatigue and there's definitely physical fatigue," acknowledged coach Claude Julien, whose men had one good period in them last night.
It came after Montreal already had gotten goals from Christopher Higgins (3:03, on the power play), Kyle Chipchura (13:40), and Tomas Plekanec (18:18) to dump Boston into a monster pothole.
"Everyone saw what happened," said rookie goalie Tuukka Rask, who got the starting nod after Tim Thomas strained his groin late in Wednesday's game. "Three-nothing in the first period, it's hard to bounce back from that."
The Canadiens had been playing poorly (three wins in 10 games), but they came out on the jump and put the Bruins on their backs. "That was not good at all," said P.J. Axelsson. "They came out flying and we came out flat."
The goals came far too easily against a Boston club that had given up only 10 first-period scores all season. The first was off an open shot by Roman Hamrlik from the left faceoff circle that produced a fat rebound for Higgins, who poked it in from the doorstep for his 12th goal.
The second literally was a walk in the Gahden for the rookie Chipchura, who strolled between the circles and fired a wrister past Rask, who might as well have been an arcade duck. Then Plekanec came storming down the right wing and wristed one to the far corner.
Taken with the four that New Jersey scored after being down, 3-0, that was seven straight goals scored against the Bruins in three periods. But just as the Devils crawled out of the crater, Boston started committing to some hockey in the second period and clawed their way back into it.
