Claude Julien just watched his team take 47 shots on net and score twice in 65 minutes, including a 4-on-3 power play in overtime and a scoreless shootout. All of this on top of 42 shots on Tuesday night that resulted in just one goal in a 4-1 loss to the Washington Capitals.

The Bruins coach was had seen enough. And when he was asked whether three goals in 89 shots and nine straight losses means his team was no better than average, Julien responded.

“We believe we have a better-than-average hockey team,” Julien said. “I think our team was pretty good tonight. I’m not going to stand here and say we’re a bad team. Absolutely not.”

Click here to hear Julien’s response in Thursday’s postgame presser following a 3-2 shootout loss to Montreal.

If there was ever a game for the Bruins to get back to their winning ways, Thursday night against archrival Montreal Canadiens would be it. Boston has fallen from fifth to 12th in the Eastern Conference standings during its eight game losing streak and has watched division opponents like the Habs leapfrog them in the standings.

Over the past three games the Bruins have played with good energy and decent emotion but have not seen the results on the scoreboard. The team has not had a positive seminal moment during the season, a game that defines the squad and sets the pace for winning hockey. With the Canadiens in town and all the fanfare that comes along with them, Thursday could be a good time to turn things around.

“There is a lot of history in it, the crowd always gets into it. It is kind of cool when they have all those Montreal Canadiens fans in the crowd. It always gets us excited every time we play these guys,” Milan Lucic said.

Yes, there is history between these two Original Six hockey clubs, but recent history between the players on each roster is not worth much going into Thurday’s contest. Last year Boston and Montreal hooked up for a memorable, fight filled battle in the Bruins last home game of the regular season and tensions and between the two were high during the Boston’s three game, first round sweep in the playoffs. Yet, significant agitators on last year’s Habs roster such as Mike Komisarek (Toronto), Saku Koivu (Anaheim), Georges Laraque (released late January) and Andrei Kostitsyn (knee injury, out till after Olympics) are not around as are several players from last year’s Bruins roster. Hence, there are not many hard feelings carried over between the players going into Thursday’s contest.

“I wish [there was carry over] but they have kind of revamped their lineup so a lot of those guys who we had the big rivalries with in the last three years are gone. I would not mind creating new ones, I suppose,” Bruins enforcer Shawn Thornton said. “We don’t like each other, we haven’t for years. I think it will be a fun game to play in, I think everybody will be up for it. So, I hope we will turn it around, yeah.”

The Bruins roster turmoil has had some effect on their goal output recently as they strive for chemistry on newly formed lines with the roster turnover or players returning from injury. As players such as Marco Sturm and Marc Savard get their health and timing back, the hope is that Boston can start generating more goals and find a way to win some games.

“We have not helped ourselves either with all the different line combinations but we are not the only team going through that and we are not going to make excuses but we have not had the same lines,” coach Claude Julien said. “The chemistry with injuries and the lines, it is a challenge and kind of have to fight through that and hopefully as we are getting a little healthier hopefully that comes back.”

At the same time, the Bruins goaltenders would do the rest of the team a big favor if they could completely shutdown an opposing team. Tuukka Rask was the first goalie off the ice after Thursday’s morning skate and will likely get the start against the Canadiens. He said that both him and Tim Thomas are always approach games with the notion that the goaltender might be able to steal a win for the team.

“We got to have that state of mind before every game. The past few games have been like that, we can’t let in any weak goals. We approach games that way that we are going to steal them and hopefully it is going to happen soon,” Rask said. “We really feel that we have been playing better and better here just without the results but I am trying to get the win here today.”

10 Bruins forwards participated in the morning skate with Mark Recchi, Savard, Sturm and Michael Ryder the missing men. On the blue line Boston had six skaters with Andrew Ference taking the ice and Dennis Wideman absent. Ference has missed the last 12 games with a groin injury. Mark Stuart will still be sidelined with a broken finger he sustained against the Kings last Saturday and is expected to be out until after the Olympics at the very least. It remains doubtful that Ference will play against the Canadiens which probably means that Adam McQuaid and Wideman will be on the rink when the puck drops barring a last minute change of plans.

Three of the most prominent leaders on the Bruins are sounding the same theme — wins are right around the corner.

The problem is the Bruins have to turn the corner first. On Wednesday, they got back to practice in Belmont and the business of pounding the pavement — or ice — and looking for the positive street signs ahead.

But Zdeno Chara, Marc Savard and Tim Thomas all believe in their hearts that their current eight-game skid — the team’s longest in 54 seasons — will soon be a thing of the past.

“We always can get going and find a way to motivate ourselves,” said Chara, who has been playing with a dislocated left pinkie finger that will likely need surgery in the offseason, according to ESPN. “We have to put this one behind us and there’s a new day tomorrow. We just have to get ready for the next game and keep trying. We have to win sooner or later.” Read the rest of this entry »

Say this much for Bruins head coach Claude Julien – he’s not looking for sympathy.

In the opening month of the season, he has lost his leading playmaker Marc Savard, his leading tough guy in Milan Lucic and now, David Krejci, one of his most skilled young forwards has been diagnosed with the H1N1 virus.

Add to that the team’s power play is dead last among the 30 NHL clubs and you have a team that is having a hard time scoring. How hard? Try 192 minutes, six seconds without lighting the lamp between Vladimir Sobotka’s tally on Saturday and Patrice Bergeron’s game-tying goal with 51.7 seconds to go on Thursday.

Still, the Bruins had to settle for just the one point as the trio of Blake Wheeler, Bergeron and Mark Recchi could not solve Carey Price in the shootout and fell 2-1 to the Montreal Canadiens.

Claude Julien said no one will feel sorry for the Bruins.

Julien said Bergeron deserved a star Thursday as Boston’s best player.

Montreal’s Carey Price said he could tell Bruins were desperate to score.

Tim Thomas said the Bruins couldn’t get discouraged when the Bergeron goal was disallowed in the second period.

Patrice Bergeron said the Bruins had to keep going, even after disallowed goal.

Bergeron said this is one step forward for the Bruins.

According to an ESPN.com report, the Montreal Canadiens have hired Florida Panthers GM Jacques Martin as their new head coach and will hold a Monday afternoon press conference to make the announcement. The former coach of the St. Louis Blues, Ottawa Senators and Florida Panthers still had three years left on his GM deal with the Panthers, but multiple sources are reporting Martin’s hiring by the Habs.

The Habs had a coaching opening after GM Bob Gainey fired Guy Carbonneau midway through the 2008-09 hockey season. Gainey took the coaching reigns after Carbonneau’s departure, but the Montreal GM was expected to return solely to his front office duties for next season.

For all the accomplishments the Boston Bruins achieved this past season, the biggest may reach far beyond the ice sheet at TD Banknorth Garden.

The Bruins are Boston’s darlings once again. Even with the heartbreaking end in Game 7 against Carolina, these Bruins seemed to have captured the imagination of the  blue-collar fan while casting in the average fan who heretofore has been preoccupied with the Red Sox, Celtics and Patriots.

“It was honestly one of the best (experiences),” 36-year-old defenseman Aaron Ward said on break-up Monday at the Garden. “I came in here two years ago towards the tail-end of the season and I don’t know if people even knew what the ‘B’ represented anymore. We didn’t have an identity. We didn’t have guys that you could associate with or to. You ask people who their favorite Boston Bruin was and they’d reach to yesteryear and it would be Cam Neely or Ray Bourque or Johnny Bucyk and now I think the game is revitalized.” Read the rest of this entry »

Long before they took exception to Milan Lucic passing to a wide open Phil Kessel for an empty net goal, Kessel’s second of the night, the No. 8 seed Montreal Canadiens showed they were not going to be a pushover in this opening round best-of-7 series, despite losing 4-2 to the Bruins at TD Banknorth Garden.

“That’s the playoffs,” said Marc Savard, who set-up Zdeno Chara’s go-ahead strike midway through the third. “There’s going to be some bad blood. Obviously, throughout the game, we tried to get away from that. There’s some bad blood but that’s the way playoffs are. We’re going to have to be ready Saturday night.”

Saturday night at 8 o’clock there figures to be more tension when the two rivals take the ice for Game 2 at the Garden.

“Obviously, Looch makes a great play like he does and then he’ s unselfish and decides to go to Kess like that, maybe there’s a little animosity on the other side,” Savard said.

The animosity, and hard-hitting, began early in the first period when Montreal enforcer Georges Laraque drilled Zdeno Chara along the corner boards in the Boston defensive zone followed up by a neutral zone hit on Milan Lucic. But it was the one against Chara that made the most noise.

“I want to play hard minutes,” Laraque said. “That’s what you do with every shift. You have to do this for the first couple of games and eventually it will turn around and make it easier for our skilled guys to play against him.”

Those two hits were no mistake. The Canadiens were clearly targeting the two toughest and biggest Bruins in an effort to show that they are not intimidated by the top-seeded Bruins, even on their home ice.

The hard hitting continued in the second period when the Canadiens managed to wipe out what was once a two-goal Boston lead when Alex Kovalev scored. The goal with 2:23 remaining in the middle frame reinforced to the Bruins that these Canadiens, even without Andrei Markhov and a limited Mathieu Schneider, mean business. Read the rest of this entry »