There has been a league-wide trend toward winning streaks and losing streaks for most NHL teams this season, and the Boston Bruins are finding that they are no different than anybody else in the NHL.

It hasn’t been as extreme as the early season when a couple of six-game streaks either way proved to be a really volatile time for the B’s in terms of team performance, but the Black and Gold currently find themselves in the holiday skids after dropping their third game in a row on Sunday night.

The 6-2 loss to the Ottawa Senators was more one-sided than a close loss to Edmonton and a shootout defeat at the hands of the Canucks, but the B’s have now lost three games in a row on home ice headed into Christmas. And it’s also the second time the Senators have dealt the Bruins a pretty humbling loss in a matchup that could be interesting if it reappears come Stanley Cup playoff time.

All that stands between the B’s and a massive bummer of a coal-in-their-stockings holiday break is a Tuesday night showdown with the Montreal Canadiens at TD Garden. It won’t be a tap-in against a Habs team that’s two points ahead of the Bruins in the Atlantic Division and is looking to head into their own holiday break remaining in the top three divisional playoff spots within the postseason structure.

“They came out flying. They came out skating. They had a lot of energy and they outworked us right away from the first puck drop and they finished us off right in the paint,” said Marco Sturm. “And we almost didn’t do anything about it. That was a disappointing night from the first to the last minute for almost everybody in that room. I think [Tanner] Jeannot and [Mark] Kastelic tried everything to get the guys going, but it was a tough one.

“They were just mentally sharper than us today. It’s not just tonight. It’s been creeping in a little bit and we just have to find a way here [to get out of it] before the break. [The streakiness] is all around the league. Everyone has gone through stretches, [but] you need to find a way to get out of it right away and be more consistent. We want to be consistent with the schedule and travel and all that kind of stuff. You are going to make some mental mistakes, but you want [your overall play] to be at one level. We’re still trying to find that level, but I’ve seen it around the league…it’s not just us.”

The obvious part here is that the Bruins look tired and it’s pretty easy to draw a correlation between these wild league-wide streaks and the fatigue that is hitting hockey teams are certain stretches of the schedule.

Perhaps nobody looks like they are fatigued more than Andrew Peeke, who is a team-worst minus-8 this month in 10 games and is one of only three B’s players in the minus during the month of December. He is also third on the Bruins with 21:59 of ice time per game this month and really appears to be struggling trying to fill in for the vacancy created when Jonathan Aspirot went down with an injury, and also having filled in admirably while Charlie McAvoy is out of the lineup.

There is little question that most of their struggles are coming down to lost battles in the defensive zone, and simple mistakes made by a team struggling to maintain their physical and mental energy during the NHL grind.

The Bruins are in a challenging stretch of five games in eight days headed into the three-day holiday break – albeit with all of the games at the Garden – but weren’t going to take the easy out of pointing to a compacted schedule in an Olympic year even if it is a legit reason.

“Everybody’s doing it, so I’m not gonna say anything on that,” said Charlie McAvoy. “These guys [the Ottawa Senators] are on a back-to-back too and they came in and just played better than us tonight. Everybody’s going through it. It’s a compact schedule, it’s not easy, but it’s the draw that everybody has.”

The simple truth is that only two teams in the Eastern Conference [Detroit Red Wings and the New York Rangers] have played as many games as the Bruins three days prior to Christmas, and only the Blueshirts have played more games than Boston in a frenzied first three months of the season. 

And New York seems to similarly be paying a price for their busy first half while out of the playoff picture, and in a similar funk to Boston where they’ve gone 4-4-2 over their last 10 games. 

But to McAvoy’s point, the Red Wings have