On its face, the Boston Bruins arrive back home to Boston feeling okay after getting a 1-1-0 split on their two-game road trip through Chicago and Dallas.<\/p>\n
The Black and Gold still sit in a wild-card playoff spot and have won eight of their last 10 games, but there are also still lingering questions about this exact Bruins group after a humbling 6-2 road defeat at the hands of the Dallas Stars at American Airlines Arena on Tuesday night.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s learning for us. It\u2019s a hard league to win in and maybe we took a little for granted tonight. They\u2019re a good team and against good teams you need to play the right way,\u201d said Hampus Lindholm. \u201cDiscipline\u2026we talked about not taking penalties and we take two to let them get a lead on us. We kind of shot ourselves in the foot a little bit\u2026we didn\u2019t want to play [a grinding] game tonight and that\u2019s what happens.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Bruins had some layups during their six-game winning streak \u2013 including games against basement dwellers like Calgary and the New York Rangers \u2013 when they faced four different teams on the second night of back-to-backs, and certainly took advantage of those circumstances by building up a win streak.<\/p>\n
But they also didn\u2019t face a single team that would be considered a legit Stanley Cup contender during the winning spree like they did in Dallas against the explosive, skilled Stars team. When facing elite competition, the flaws and foibles for the Bruins seemed all too familiar with first period penalties turning into Stars power-play goals and an early deficit that the Bruins couldn\u2019t overcome.<\/p>\n
Then Jason Robertson turned on NHL superstar mode in the third period and potted a pair of goals among his ridiculous 17 shot attempts for the game, a stretch that saw Jeremy Swayman pulled from the game and the Bruins knocked completely on their heels for the first time since back-to-back 6-2 losses to the Canadiens and Senators right before the Christmas holiday during a dreadful homestand.<\/p>\n
\u201cTwo things we talked about were [winning] faceoffs and making sure we played the game 5-on-5 and we didn\u2019t do that. We were pretty much chasing the game right from the hop. Against a team like that it\u2019s going to be hard,\u201d said\u00a0Marco Sturm. \u201cWe have to learn from it. The way I see it, [the Stars] are a playoff team. But they are willing to play the style of game where they just grind it out and stick with it. We didn\u2019t do it and we were playing cute all the way to the end, and we cannot do that.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf it\u2019s a tight game you can say we were in it right until the end, but we were not in it tonight. That for me is a positive because it shows us that we have to [learn to] play that style of game, and it\u2019s not going to be a game like against Chicago every night. I see Vegas as exactly the same\u2026same kind of style and play and same system, so are we willing to play that kind of game [against the Golden Knights]? We\u2019ve got to go back to work.\u201d<\/p>\n
It continues to leave the Bruins wondering exactly where they stand with this season\u2019s group as they search for a right shot defenseman after finishing as the runner-up to the Vegas Golden Knights in the Rasmus Andersson\u00a0trade sweepstakes. Hockey Night in Canada\u2019s Elliotte Friedman spilled the details in this week\u2019s big trade as the lack of a contract extension for the big Swedish defenseman ended up being the hold-up for the Black and Gold in a theoretical deal where they were coughing up a lot of future assets.<\/p>\n