The Bruins lost their second straight game after a lackadaisical effort led to a 6-3 loss to the Chicago Blackhawks on Tuesday night.
Boston was outplayed by a tanking team that's outside of the playoff picture and looked tired all night.
It's not like the Bruins to lose two straight, especially in regulation, and now certainly is not the time to get complacent despite already punching their ticket to the Stanley Cup playoffs.
Here are four takeaways from Tuesday's loss.
Energy wasn't there
From the start the Bruins just didn't have it. They found themselves playing from behind and giving up the first goal for the third consecutive game. Boston didn't look like its normal self and didn't show a whole lot of signs of life against a team that's at the bottom of the Central Division standings.
"Frustration," Bruins head coach Jim Montgomery told NESN's Jack Edwards and Andy Brickley of his emotions after the loss. "Mostly frustration. We're not working as a team right now and it's the first time all year I can say that.
"... I just know the energy and emotion of our team right now is ... at levels I haven't seen all year."
It also was another game that the Bruins didn't start on time. Usually, they've been able to overcome that and put together a solid win, but that wasn't the case against the Blackhawks.
"It's our starts," Charlie Coyle told reporters. "Our starts are kind of killing us. It got covered up there in that first Detroit game on Saturday because we ended up winning, so maybe you don't think about it as much but that next game, it's the same thing. Bad start and we're behind the eight-ball. ... It's a shame because there's no excuse for that. ... We should be coming in ready to go and have that great start. .... We can't be shooting ourselves in the foot. ... We pride ourselves on being a team that can come back but you can't be doing that every night. ... There's a lot of things we can look at right now but our starts are definitely one of them."
Facing a reality check
The Bruins have been atop the NHL standings for most of the 2022-23 season. They became the fastest team in NHL history to reach 50 wins, set franchise records and were the first time to clinch a playoff berth. But after losing two straight games in regulation for the first time all season -- against non-playoff teams -- Patrice Bergeron knows the B's are getting hit in the face with reality.
"I think right now we're disconnected," Bergeron told reporters after the game. "We're not playing the right way. We're cheating and I think this league is going to humble you if you don't do that. So I think that's what we're getting right now. I think for us, like we've done all year, we've gotta look at ourselves in the mirror, we know that it's not good enough and we need to go back to what’s successful to us and what's been good to us all year. A lot of things we can learn from these past couple games."
There's no reason to panic about how the Bruins have played over their last two games. After all, they did just win 10 in a row and have been playing at a historic level all season. They were bound to hit some sort of slump, but they need to right the wrongs sooner rather than later.
Linus Ullmark is human
Ullmark has been a brick wall between the pipes for the Bruins and is the runaway favorite to win the Vezina Trophy this year. But no one is perfect and Ullmark had an off night Tuesday when he allowed five goals on 28 shots. Ullmark snapped his eight-game win streak and looked off all night and probably wants a few of those goals back -- especially the opening one from MacKenzie Entwistle.
Power play problems
The power play has struggled over its last few games and that trend continued Tuesday when the Bruins went 0-for-2. It's reminiscent of last year when Boston just couldn't seem to figure out the man advantage. It's a problem that needs to be addressed, especially with playoffs right around the corner.
"... Our focus has been there. Now it's two stretches we haven't had it, right?," Montgomery told reporters. "The first one I thought it was physical, fatigue, this one, there's no reason for physical fatigue, and we look like we are tired. ... A lot of things we're not doing well as a group right now.
"We might bend at times, but we don't break and we've been breaking."
There still are 16 games left on the schedule, which should hopefully be enough time for the Bruins to work out the kinks.
