"It always seems like we play better when we're playing against better teams."
That's what Bruins coach Marco Sturm said Tuesday night after a big win over the Stars. He's right. Boston rose to the occasion throughout March in wins over the likes of Dallas, Minnesota, Buffalo, Columbus and Detroit.
Unfortunately, the Bruins have also developed a habit of playing down to the competition against lesser teams. That trait was on display again Thursday night in Sunrise, as the Bruins lost in regulation to the Florida Panthers, 2-1.
This year's Panthers have not been the same Panthers as the last few years. They have been hammered by injuries, and they long ago dropped out of the playoff race. They were missing a whopping nine regulars Thursday night, including Brad Marchand, Sam Reinhart and Aaron Ekblad.
Boston should have known that the Panthers weren't just going to roll over, though. Florida just beat Ottawa, a team squarely on the playoff bubble, 6-3 on Tuesday. The Bruins might have missed that one, because they barely showed up for the first two periods.
The Panthers went up 2-0 just eight minutes into the game, taking advantage of some sloppy defensive-zone play from the Bruins. On the first goal, Henri Jokiharju turned the puck over below the goal line, then proceeded to screen Jeremy Swayman on Mackie Samoskevich's shot. Jokiharju was victimized again on the second goal, losing a battle in the corner to Seth Jones in the build-up to Sam Bennett's finish.
Fraser Minten cut it to 2-1 late in the first period, and the Bruins might have hoped that would create some momentum for the second. It didn't, though. The Bruins came out flat again and got outshot 12-5 in the middle frame.
They finally came to life in the third period and had some good chances to tie the game, firing 14 shots on net. But Sergei Bobrovsky stood tall and prevented the Bruins from salvaging a point they probably didn't deserve anyways.
"We didn't respect our opponent," a frustrated Sturm told NESN after the game. "I think that's the bottom line. We looked over probably and we saw a lot of guys out, and we didn't respect the Stanley Cup champion. And that was it. That was the game. And then after that, we were chasing. We addressed it before the game, it doesn't matter who's in or who's out for them. You know, they're champions for a reason, and we didn't really respect that at all. That's the frustrating part."
It's also frustrating because the Bruins have gone through this several times recently. They played down to a bad Maple Leafs team last week and lost 4-2. A week earlier, it was a 4-3 overtime loss in New Jersey against a bad Devils team. And 10 days before that, it was a 6-3 loss in Nashville to a Predators team that had just sold off a bunch of pieces.
In all of those cases, the Bruins responded and played better once they got back to playing better teams. Maybe it's a good thing, then, that the rest of this four-game road trip is against better teams. They play the Lightning (second-best record in the East) on Saturday, the Flyers (on the bubble and fighting for their playoff lives) on Sunday, and the Hurricanes (best record in the East) on Tuesday.
Thursday's loss on its own doesn't really hurt the Bruins all that much. It diminishes their chances of catching Montreal for third in the division, but they're still six points above the cut line in the wild card race. They still have a 95% chance to make the playoffs, according to HockeyStats.
But it is an annoying, avoidable loss, and now the Bruins need to make sure it doesn't snowball into anything more serious.
