Bruins’ Losing Streak Attributed To This Recurring Problem

BOSTON — The Bruins showed flashes of capability Thursday, but those flashes once again got stomped by a series of self-inflicted mistakes that earned them trips to the penalty box.

Boston dropped its last three games, including a 5-2 defeat to the Dallas Stars on Sunday, with penalties crippling the Bruins. Boston committed six penalties against the Nashville Predators on Tuesday and five more against the Stars.

“Yeah, we gotta stop taking penalties and that’s myself included,” Charlie McAvoy said. “I didn’t get one tonight but sometimes it’s bad luck with stick infractions. Most of the time, you can just drop back to effort. We’re taxing our penalty kill way too much. We have a great penalty kill.”

The Bruins entered the night with the eighth-best penalty-killing unit in the NHL. That won’t matter if the group keeps having to log the minutes it has in recent games.

“We need to stay out of the box,” Matt Poitras said. “Going through long stretches of five-on-four, eventually the other team is going to make plays. It’s the NHL. They have great players over there. Need to stay out of the box and can’t give them those opportunities.”

Thursday’s loss particularly amplified the issue when the Stars converted three straight power-play opportunities to start the second period. It’s hard to gauge where the Bruins stand in the current rank of the NHL, both in the sense of how early it is in the season as well as what’s played a stronger role in the losses: self-inflicted mistakes or better competition?

That is the one benefit for the Bruins. It’s early, changes can be made and Boston can get in the rhythm that defined hot starts in each of the last two seasons under head coach Jim Montgomery.

“These things are compounding right now,” McAvoy said. “It’s unfortunate. We gotta find a way to stop it. This is a bit of new territory for us to have this happening early in the year after the last couple of years when we’re just gangbusters.”