BRIGHTON, Mass. — It’s a cliché in every classic sports movie. The team is down in the dumps facing some form of adversity, and the head coach gives an impassioned speech that fires up the players, rallies them together, and inspires them to come out victorious in the end.

The Boston Bruins sure look like they can use one of those right about now, marred in an early season losing streak. However, for first year head coach Marco Sturm, the trick to snapping a skid isn’t some sort of over the top diatribe.

“It’s just going back to details, and I think going back to our foundation,” Sturm said Thursday morning at Warrior Ice Arena. “What happens is a lot of times is you think you’ve got to score, and think about offense all the time, and this and that, and you forget about the details and the foundation of your game. We’re not there yet.”

“We can’t look too much ahead. I know it’s tough to be patient sometimes, especially when you lose, but we got to start from there and build up as much as we can.”

After starting the year 3-0 out of the gate, the Bruins have lost five straight games, all in regulation, and four by one goal.

To their credit, the Bruins have shown fight. They have refused to fold it in at the first sign of trouble, like they did on too many occasions last season. But if they hope to bounce back from that miserable campaign and regain respectability, the Bruins can’t keep settling for moral victories.

“It can only be encouraging for so long,” said Morgan Geekie following Boston’s latest loss, a 4-3 defeat to Brad Marchand and the Florida Panthers on Tuesday night. “It stings. At some point, something’s got to give. I think we’ve just got to figure out how to play a full 60 [minutes]. A lot of these problems can be mitigated, for sure.”

The Bruins suffered through three separate losing streaks of five games or more last year, including one of 10 consecutive losses, and spent this past offseason bringing players with high levels of competitive spirit to ensure that didn’t happen again. Less than month into the new season, the Bruins have already begun to slide.

However, Sturm isn’t waiting around for issues to solve themselves.

He’s been unafraid to hold underperforming players accountable in the 12 days since the team’s most recent win, calling out defenseman Mason Lohrei and even going as far as benching top-six forward Casey Mittelstadt for a game.

Sturm has also been proactive by juggling his lines on a game-to-game basis. For Thursday night’s matchup with the Anaheim Ducks at TD Garden, fourth line grinder Jeffrey Viel will have a chance to play a top-nine role.

“Stability,” Sturm said when asked what he hopes Viel can provide while playing next to Tanner Jeannot and Fraser Minten on the third line. “That line was really good the first four games and then, against good teams with a lot of speed, I thought they had just a little bit of trouble. Viel has been great. His details have actually been very good. He’s not just a fighter, I can tell you that. I just want to give that line a little bit more stability, with and without the puck.”

Boston will also likely be without defenseman Hampus Lindholm for the third game in a row, as he remains a game-time decision while nursing a nagging lower-body injury. If Lindholm is unavailable, the recently called-up Michael Callahan will take his spot and make his season debut after the Bruins placed Jordan Harris on injured reserve. Joonas Korpisalo will start in net for Boston, with puck drop set for 7:08 p.m. EST.

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