It was bad all right. No emotion. Hardly any will to win. Puck battles lost in every corner of the rink. Getting bullied and bested on home ice by a team that thrives on intimidation and physical play.
For some reason, the Eastern Conference-leading Bruins played downright scared.
"We're not playing with any emotion," said Michael Ryder (one shot in 15:33 of action). "We're not showing the most passion on the ice. When teams come in and outwork you in your own building like that, it's not a good way to come off a couple games where we played well.
"All of a sudden, we're struggling again. For us right now, we need to find consistency in our game. It's tough to play one good game, then in the next one, you just don't have it."
The peak-and-valley stumble of shame is the most troubling thing for the Bruins, who thought they had corrected a 1-3-2 skid by laying a 6-1 beatdown on Florida last Tuesday, then following it up with a 6-0 thumping of Anaheim two nights later.
Occasional stinkers? Every team has them. But the Bruins have crested and smacked bottom in a week's span, indicating that there might be a deeper ailment than the usual suspects like fatigue, injuries, or the simple rhythm of an 82-game schedule.
"We thought we were making some good strides last week in finding our game again," said Julien. "Obviously tonight, I think we might have taken one backwards.
"It's what this game's all about. You've got to try and focus on your next game, make the corrections that need to happen, and hopefully with a solid effort the next game, maybe we'll be able to forget this one."
Other than a first-period power-play strike by Patrice Bergeron, there was little good to remember from the flameout. After starting the sequence with an off-balance cross-corner dump to Marc Savard, Bergeron set up at the left circle, having opened up some space for himself by getting rid of the puck. Savard sent it back to Zdeno Chara, who shuttled the puck down to Bergeron for an open one-timer. Bergeron didn't miss, hammering a sizzler past goalie Antero Niittymaki (22 saves) at 14:25.
