Bruins defenseman Nikita Zadorov didn’t hold back about his team’s performance as Boston’s losing streak reached 10 games after Thursday’s 4-1 loss to the Montreal Canadiens.
“The other teams are just hungrier than ours,” he said, according to NHL.com’s Sean Farrell. “They want to win more, that’s the bottom line. We’re just not hard on the puck. We’re easy to play against.”
Boston last suffered a 10-game losing streak during the 2009-10 season, when they recovered with a 16-8-2 record afterward to make the playoffs before a second-round exit.
This year’s team won’t have that opportunity. The Bruins sit 12 points out of a wild-card spot with just six games left. They currently occupy last place in the Eastern Conference with a 30-37-9 record.
Boston and Montreal remained scoreless after the first period Thursday before the game unraveled for the Bruins.
The Canadiens dominated the second period, outshooting Boston 17-2 and scoring twice through Christian Dvorak and Cole Caufield.
Montreal controlled 90.3% of the expected goals while creating a 7-1 advantage in high-danger chances at five-on-five during that period, according to Natural Stat Trick.
“I mean everything,” Zadorov said when asked what went wrong after the first period, per NESN’s Gayle Troiani. “We didn’t win any battles. Couldn’t leave our zone. We got one shot, two shots on net in the last five minutes of the period.”
Bruins forward Elias Lindholm offered a straightforward solution to end the streak.
“We need a 60-minute effort,” he said. “We haven’t had that in forever, I feel like. Probably the last time we won a game (March 11 agains the Florida Panthers). … We play one period pretty good, and then we fall apart.”
Boston has collected just one point during the 10-game slide while being outscored 46-18.
The team has allowed 16 goals in second periods and 17 in third periods during the streak.
Goaltender Jeremy Swayman is trying to maintain perspective despite the team’s struggles.
“I think that we just have to stay in the moment,” he said. “It’s extremely difficult to do, it’s easy to say. But that’s what makes diamonds out of us all, I think we have the mentality and are just learning so much as a group and as individuals.
“We’re all gonna push through. Anyone that puts this jersey on knows that we have a job to do.”
Boston faces the Carolina Hurricanes at 7 p.m. ET Saturday.
