Boston still had plenty of work to do if it wanted to put that six-game slide in the rearview mirror. <\/p>\n
But a win over Colorado at least felt like a step in the right direction for a team that \u2014 amid an extremely uneven start \u2014 has at least shown some resolve and an unwillingness to roll over amid adversity.<\/p>\n
\u201cI spoke a lot about just the character of the guys we had, and I think we came in yesterday and had a long video session and a lot of teaching and cleaned up a lot of those things today,\u201d Morgan Geekie said of Boston\u2019s response on Saturday. \u201cObviously, there\u2019s still room for improvement, and we\u2019re not going to stop at one. But it\u2019s a good step in the right direction. It\u2019s really easy to build off a game like today.\u201d<\/p>\n
And on Monday, the Bruins uprooted whatever progress was built against the Senators \u2014 taking about 10 steps back in what was an ugly 7-2 loss at the Canadian Tire Center<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cI thought giving the guys a day off yesterday, coming in today, all ready to go \u2014 and we didn\u2019t,\u201d Sturm said. \u201cThat, for me, it\u2019s the most disappointing thing that you know, we took it lightly \u2014 I don\u2019t know lightly, but we just probably were not serious enough right from the start. And that\u2019s that\u2019s really unacceptable.\u201d <\/p>\n A lopsided loss to Ottawa stands as the seventh setback in 11 games. <\/p>\n But in a campaign that has already seen the Bruins relinquish late leads and cough up back-breaking tallies in see-saw bouts, Monday\u2019s no-show stood as the toughest pill to swallow. <\/p>\n Critics have plenty of ammunition when it comes to taking pot shots at this Bruins club \u2014 be it their dearth of proven talent up front, porous D-zone coverage, or propensity of letting go of the rope at critical junctures of games. <\/p>\n But after a miserable 2024-25 season where Boston routinely found itself run out of the building in blowouts and beatdowns, Sturm\u2019s squad could at least hang their hat on the fact that this flawed roster was going to scrap, claw, and refuse to go out quietly. <\/p>\n The Bruins aren\u2019t going to out-skill opponents and outscore their mistakes, night in and night out. <\/p>\n But numerous one-goal losses and third-period scoring surges this month at least offered hope that last year\u2019s team was going to represent the low point of this ongoing rebuild.<\/p>\n Harping on that optimism sure feels like a fool\u2019s errand after Monday \u2014 as one would be hard-pressed to tell the difference between what played out in Ottawa and the 2024-25 team that slammed shut a nearly 20-year contention window in Boston. <\/p>\n \u201cCan\u2019t get much worse, really. \u2026 I just know how hard this group works and how bad everybody wants it, and then to show up like that is just like \u2014 I don\u2019t know,\u201d Geekie said Monday. \u201cWe put them on the power play five times. They score four of them. <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s like, you shooting yourselves in the foot, and it\u2019s been like that all year. But I mean, five-on-five, we don\u2019t really create a ton. I mean, we\u2019re a little better defensively, but we\u2019re still giving up lapses and stuff like that. So I don\u2019t know. It\u2019s just, I wish I could tell you more. I don\u2019t know. It\u2019s tough today.\u201d<\/p>\n It comes as little surprise that Geekie is still searching for answers after the Bruins regressed in just about every area of the game on Wednesday. <\/p>\n After tightening up defensively on Saturday against Colorado, Boston\u2019s mistake-prone structure was shredded once again by a Sens team soldiering on without Brady Takchuk.<\/p>\n