Thursday night might turn out to be one of the oddest games of the year for the Bruins, who appeared even in shot totals on the final score sheet but did nothing to control play over the final two periods of play. After a 1-o lead through the first 20 minutes — one that might have been more if the B’s could have finished a few more opportunities — the Ducks ripped off six, count ‘em six unanswered goals in a 6-1 thrashing over the B’s at TD Garden.

Perhaps the biggest disappointment of the evening was how little fight the Black and Gold Bears had in them after taking a few punches from the Ducks during the decisive second period.

“When you’ve got to talk about the fourth line being your hardest working line all the time, then it doesn’t bode well for your hockey club,” said B’s coach Claude Julien. “I’m not going to start picking on individuals tonight because we had too many guys that were not going. I’ll just have to deal with the dirty laundry inside that dressing room.”

Once again the fourth line was probably Boston’s best all night and both Shawn Thornton and Steve Begin actually registered three shots on goal apiece after just one period of play. But the Bruins began practicing the art of undisciplined play in the second period, and the ageless Finn, Teemu Selanne, potted a pair of power play strikes in a throwback performance.

Boston’s only score turned out to be Marco Sturm’s first period strike created on a nifty backhanded saucer pass from playmaker Marc Savard. Sturm rifled a slapshot from the left faceoff dot that trickled through Ducks goaltender Jonas Hiller’s pads to give Boston a brief 1-0 lead at the 16:33 mark. The B’s followed with more offensive threats, but couldn’t put anything else past Hiller. The B’s also finished out a perfectly horrid evening by throwing up an 0-for-6 on the man advantage.

The B’s didn’t show a lot of fight after Corey Perry capped off Anaheim’s three-goal second period with a pretty one-man rush that had Boston’s defense standing still. That plume of smoke visible on television was steam coming out of the ears of Julien after another stink bomb thrown down so early in the season.

YOU’RE THE BEST AROUND, AND NOTHING’S GONNA EVER KEEP YOU DOWN: Teemu Selanne. The 39-year-old flying Finn hadn’t registered a point in Anaheim’s first two games, but did some major damage on the Ducks power play against the Bruins. Give Selanne’s teammates credits for setting him up with shots in places where he could do plenty of damage in tight close to the net.

GOAT HORNS: Matt Hunwick. He’s been off to a slow start coming back from surgery, and he’s looked pretty uncomfortable playing off his strong side at right defense paired with Mark Stuart. The Ducks scored their first PP goal on his interference penalty and he was caught standing still on Perry’s strike. He also allowed Evgeny Artyukhin to go wide on him for Anaheim’s fourth goal in the third period. Hunwick finished a minus-2 for the evening, and is still trying to find his game.