“There’s certain teams during certain years that will give you a hard time,’’ said Bruins coach Claude Julien. “They have. They’ve played us well. They’ve made it hard on us.
“At the same time, they’ve come in here with a lot of confidence. They beat us the last three games. Pretty soundly. That’s what the situation is.’’
The Bruins are 4-4-1 in their last nine games, their record an accurate reflection of how they’re treading water in the dog days of January and February.
The home club was especially drowsy in the second period, when it appeared that a dressing room visitor replaced the good stuff with a tankard full of watered-down commodity decaf.
“To absolutely fall asleep in the second period - not good enough at all,’’ said Shawn Thornton. “I don’t think we had everyone going, again. It seems to be the same old story.
“We’re not that good that we can just come out, go through the motions, and expect to be successful. When we’re at the top of our game, it’s because everyone’s working. But it’s not happening right now.’’
The second period displayed the Bruins at their worst. Lazy. Not engaged. Making bad decisions. Spinning their wheels and not getting any traction.
And they paid for it.
The Bruins, down, 1-0, after 20 minutes (Eric Staal scored at 11:51 of the first), couldn’t string together two good shifts.
Meanwhile, the Hurricanes were the aggressors. They came hard with a strong forecheck. They won races against the backchecking Bruins. And a never-quit effort by Brandon Sutter - Carolina’s version of Patrice Bergeron - led to a crippling Tuomo Ruutu strike.
The play in question started deep in the Boston zone after a Carolina dump-in. Andrew Ference, going back for the puck, tried to backhand a D-to-D pass to Adam McQuaid. Sutter sprinted after the puck, stepped between two defensemen, and picked off the pass.
Rask got a left pad on Sutter’s short-range shot. But Ruutu found the rebound, pulled the puck to his backhand, and beat a down-and-out Rask at 16:41 of the second to give the Hurricanes a 2-0 lead.
