Worry, frustration creeping into Bruins’ reaction to loss

Early in the season, the Bruins players were preaching calm and patience even when they were struggling. Because they’d experienced so much success in recent years, they sounded confident that things would eventually click.

But they haven’t. Not for longer than a few games a time. After Wednesday’s blowout 5-1 loss, 49 games into the season, there’s a greater sense of desperation leaking into the conversation.

The Bruins are now fourth in the wild card race after slipping further back on Wednesday.

Morgan Geekie, who scored the Bruins’ only goal in the game, expressed his frustration after the game.

“We’re trying to find an answer in here and what we’re doing is not good enough and we know it,” he said. “It’s embarrassing frankly how we’re letting these games slip away from us and there’s not that many of them left. We know the position we’re in and what it’s going to take to climb out of it. We’ll try to get back on the horse tomorrow.”

The Bruins were outshot 35-23 and gave up 13 high-danger chances in the game as New Jersey dominated after the first intermission.

Nikitia Zadorov tried to answer what went wrong in the second period.

“We were flat. Not competing. Losing battles. We’ve just got to figure out,” he said. “We’re not the (most skilled) team in the league. We’re not going to win on skill. We’re going to win on will. We’ve got to work hard and (outwork) teams. That’s how you win in this league.”

Geekie was asked about the team’s struggles getting the puck out of their own end, which has been problematic of late. He answered but then drifted into further conversation about the team’s larger issues.

“I don’t think the execution has been there. You saw that in the second period when we were hemmed in our own end for five minutes. Just stupid mistakes that end up costing us later in the game,” he said. “We know it’s on us. It’s something we need to fix in here. I think it comes down to compete and execution. To a guy, that’s something we can all get better at.”

Charlie Coyle was a little more positive.

“There’s definitely some things we can look at and tighten up,” he said. “There are things we can talk about so we can get better moving forward.”