BOSTON — The Bruins find themselves in a hole they've never overcome before.
The club is 0-26 in franchise history when opening a seven-game series 0-2. They've been swept in 15 of those series.
That's a distinct possibility now that they've fallen behind the Canadiens two games to none with the series shifting to enemy territory in Montreal on Monday after Saturday's 3-1 setback at the Garden.
But the Bruins aren't ready to give up just yet.
"We have to regroup here and we will," veteran forward Mark Recchi said. "We're not going to quit as a team here. We believe in each other and I think the coaching staff will make some adjustments. And we have to go on the road and do the same thing they did to us. We're going to be there and we're not going to quit and we're going to be ready to play Monday."
The Bruins can look at their own recent history for some inspiration, even if the particular memories might be rather painful. Boston was even closer to putting away a series last spring, but couldn't close out their second-round series with Philadelphia after going up 3-0.
"There's a lot of veterans in here and we all know what's on the line," defenseman Dennis Seidenberg said. "We all know what happened last year and we're just going to work hard the next two games and hopefully get a better outcome.
"It's in the back of our mind, obviously," Seidenberg added of that Flyers' series. "That's our only chance to think that way right now. We just have to improve our game and we will be fine."
Improving their game has to be the first priority. Historical inspiration won't mean anything if the club continues to commit costly turnovers and fails to convert its own chances at the other end of the ice as it has in the first two games of this series. 
"Well, it's a best of seven," Bruins coach Claude Julien said. "We've lost the first two games. And, let's be honest here, our team has not played at all close to the way we know we can. You can outshoot them, you can do a lot of things, but the mistakes that we have made in this series so far are very uncharacteristic of our hockey team, and we need to be better than that.
"If they're going to score some goals, they need to earn them a lot more than they have," Julien continued. "We had to work pretty hard tonight just to get that one goal, and I don't think they had to work as hard to get theirs. And that's basically the difference right now in the games — the execution of one team, compared to the execution of the other one. I'm going to stand here and tell you that our execution isn't good enough and it needs to be better. That's what we have to do from here on in."
Plain and simple, the Bruins have not played well enough to win either of these first two games. And that's a fact that the players didn't hide from in the wake of Saturday's setback.
"You have to earn your wins in the playoffs," defenseman Andrew Ference said. "It's the fairest competition there is. Whichever team is better, makes the least amount of mistakes deserves the win.
"It hasn't been horrible hockey on either side, but there's been mistakes that we've made that have cost us for sure," Ference added. "We can't feel bad about not scoring. We've directed shots at the net. We know we're up against a good goalie. We know how hard it was to work for that goal tonight, and that's what it's going to take. They've done the better job of capitalizing on mistakes."
The Bruins can take some solace in the fact that they were a much better road team this season. Winning away from home is more difficult in the playoffs, but the Canadiens have certainly proven it's not impossible.
"It might be good for us to get on the road," Seidenberg said. "We've been good on the road the whole season. And I mean now we have to get going and start winning."
That's an understatement. It's been 39 years since the Bruins won it all. They've now dropped six straight playoff games since going up 3-0 on Philadelphia. The patience for such missteps is long gone. The Bruins can't afford to add more misery to their long-suffering fan base.
"We're disappointed, but we've just got to make sure we stay positive," defenseman Johnny Boychuk said. "We know that we can come back and do this for our whole team, for the city."
