That doesn't mean this will be an enjoyable vacation. The time off will also give the Bruins plenty of time to dwell on yet another lackluster performance after a 5-3 loss in Washington on Tuesday.
"It's a very sour taste," Bruins coach Claude Julien said. "When you give up the goals that you gave up tonight, honestly I thought we gave them all those goals. We can't win hockey games playing the way we did tonight. We seemed half a step behind for most of the night, and you certainly can't win that way."
The Bruins didn't give up more than four goals in a game in any of their first 42 contests this season. In the last five games, they've surrendered five goals three times. They are just 3-3-1 in their last seven games, and needed to go to a shootout in two of those three victories.
As has become far too commonplace of late, the Bruins suffered a number of defensive breakdowns on Tuesday. The Bruins were guilty of giving away the puck at crucial times, getting caught out of position and failing to pick up their assignments inside their own zone. Those are miscues uncharacteristic of a Julien-coached team, and mistakes that were rarely seen when the club snapped out of its Stanley Cup hangover at the start of November and rattled off 25 wins in its next 30 games before slipping back into mediocrity over the last seven outings.
Washington forward Mathieu Perreault, who came into the night with just four goals on the season, was the biggest benefactor of the Bruins' largesse. He notched a hat trick to lead the Capitals' offense, with the last two of his goals coming off Boston giveaways.
He scored his second of the night to break a 2-2 tie in the second directly off a turnover, stealing Johnny Boychuk's ill-advised backhanded pass at center ice and breaking in alone on Tuukka Rask (18 saves). Perreault's third goal came less directly off a giveaway, as Alexander Semin stole an Adam McQuaid crossing pass and swooped in on a breakaway of his own.
Semin couldn't put his shot home, but the Bruins never recovered, as they remained hemmed in their zone scrambling around until Roman Hamrlik fired in a shot from the blue line and Perreault banged home the rebound in front, this time breaking a 3-3 deadlock in the third with the eventual game-winner.
"We realize that we've got to be better," Bruins center Patrice Bergeron said. "It's little things. We can't just rely on playing a good first, a bad second and just think that everything is going to come up in the third period and we're going to win the game."
The Bruins have allowed too many lapses in their games of late. They have been fortunate to survive some of those sporadic efforts to steal enough points to remain atop the Northeast Division and within just two points of the conference lead, but they know they can't afford to continue to play in just spurts.
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