Bruins' Disappointing Loss To Blues: Aberration Or Cause For Concern?

One bad, tough road loss to the Carolina Hurricanes was one thing for the Boston Bruins.

Those are the defending Stanley Cup champions, and the best team in the NHL to start this season.

Off nights will happen, and the Bruins still only lost by one.

Then came Thursday night against the St. Louis Blues, and, well, things went better in some ways, but other areas got way worse.

The penalty kill struggled mightily, allowing two power play goals to the Blues, who ran away with a 3-1 lead after two periods.

The Bruins outshot the Blues 14-2 in the third period, but the game itself felt decided by then.

This despite what was a strong start early, with James Hagens striking with a nifty redirect just over five minutes into the game.

Marco Sturm had a clear reason why.

“Even the games we won lately, we were just making sloppy mistakes, and it finally caught up to us a little bit on this road trip,” Sturm said. “But besides that, the effort today, especially the first 40 minutes, was pretty bad. That for me was the most disappointing thing.”

It's about as harsh as Sturm gets. 

Sturm wanted to wake the team up a bit, as he scratched Frederic Brunet Thursday night, looking for a spark from Connor Clifton.

It didn't work. Clifton played over 14 minutes and had a -1 on the night.

The Bruins hold onto first in the Atlantic Division for now, so there's no need for extreme panic.

It's just a pair of real sloppy games.

Boston will get their next chance to win Saturday afternoon against the Chicago Blackhawks.