Bruins Left Looking for Answers After Loss to Capitals

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Feb 2, 2010

Bruins Left Looking for Answers After Loss to Capitals The Bruins' scoring drought is no new story, but Tuesday night's 4-1 loss to the Eastern Conference's best team just seemed different.

The Bruins skaters had the edge in every department, but they could not solve Jose Theodore. By the end of the night, the 33-year-old had 41 saves, and his Capitals had a 4-1 victory — their 11th consecutive win.

Despite the fact that the Bruins currently sit dead last in the NHL in goals per game (2.31), Blake Wheeler said Tuesday night's game felt more like one played by last year's team — the one that scored the second-most goals in the league (3.29 per game).

"It felt like a blowout on our end," Wheeler said. "It felt like last year, to be honest. It just felt like we had so much energy and the defensemen were making great passes up the ice to the forwards."

Still, Wheeler knew that outplaying the opponent didn't mean much.

"We really played a good game, but that's not good enough," he said. "Two points is all you get judged on."

Like Wheeler, Claude Julien doesn't feel this year's squad is extraordinarily different from those of recent years.

"Those same things that we have been doing last year and the year before gave us some success," he said. "We haven't really changed anything; the results are changing right now, and we gotta find a way to change the results, not change our game."

With just one goal on Tuesday and nine goals in their last seven games, the Bruins need an answer. They've seemingly tried everything they could on the ice, so Marc Savard suggested something a bit different: taking a page out of Pedro Cerrano's book.

"Maybe we gotta sacrifice a chicken or a rooster or something like that to try to change our luck," he said. "It's not like guys don't want to score on this team. Guys want to put the puck in the net."

If the Bruins need a lesson on what they need to do to turn things around, they need only look at what the Capitals did on Tuesday. Washington was outshot and outskated but made the most of its opportunities. The score sheet wasn't an accurate depiction of the game, but that didn't matter. The Capitals were leaving town with two points in their back pockets.

The Bruins and Julien all still believed they were putting in the effort, but Julien admitted that even he didn't know what the team needs to get back on track.

"Do you relieve the tension or do you push them harder to make something happen?" Julien said when asked what he and his staff will do at practice on Wednesday. "I wish I had the answer now, but this is something that you really have to look into.

"From my perspective, I'm seeing a team that's working hard and that's getting some great scoring chances, and after two periods, there was no doubt which team was the better team."

Julien said that even with the eight-game winless streak, there's plenty of positivity in the locker room.

"That's what we gotta keep hanging onto right now, the fact that we're still in the mix," he said. "One of our goals is to try to win those games in hand, so it can make a difference, and those things are starting to slip away."

 A sign hangs above a doorway in the Bruins' dressing room. It reads: "Knowing is not enough. We must apply. Willing is not enough. We must do."

With each mounting loss, the window for the Bruins to get it done shrinks more and more.

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