But on Tuesday night, the Bruins weren't able to feed off the energy created by their physical play. Instead, they were worn out trying to kill off a nonstop string of Carolina power plays as the Hurricanes took advantage of a frustrated Boston team's lack of discipline to secure a 4-1 victory over the reigning champs.
"Obviously we took some penalties that let us work on our penalty kill for a while," Bruins defenseman Andrew Ference said. "That happens, guys are emotional and I don't know how to explain it. Sometimes you just want to get something going so bad that you try to get involved physically, and if it's a little one-sided the other team just turns the other cheek and it's tough to get something started just purely by that. I'd rather see our emotional side during the games where we are ahead and taking control of games."
The Bruins were never ahead in this one, giving up single goals in each of the first two periods. But they rallied in the third, cutting the deficit in half when Rich Peverley ended the club's power-play drought that stretched 22 chances back to the season opener.
But just 31 seconds after that goal, Nathan Horton took a costly double-minor for attacking Carolina defenseman Tim Gleason, who turtled on the play and did not receive a penalty. Zdeno Chara and Dennis Seidenberg each took minors within the next 40 seconds, giving Carolina back-to-back two-man advantages. The Hurricanes scored twice on the 5-on-3's and put the game out of reach.
"I thought we did a good job of getting back into the game," Bruins forward Chris Kelly said. "And when you look back, it was our frustration that cost us the game. I think we've got to be more level-headed and realize the time and score when we initiate certain things."
Kelly provided the right kind of spark when he decked Brett Sutter in a fight in the third period, exacting a measure of revenge for Sutter's hit earlier in the game that knocked Joe Corvo out of action for part of the opening period. The Bruins responded with Peverley scoring just 29 seconds after that bout.
"I think guys were taking shots at us and we were just responding," Bruins forward Brad Marchand said. "They had a couple of cheap shots, one on Corvs there in the first period and Kells got a little revenge for that. And other points guys were just kind of taking shots and we were sticking up for each other."
After that, it was a matter of the Bruins trying for too much of a good thing. They continuously tried to bait the Hurricanes into further altercations, but Carolina wouldn't accept the challenges, instead taking the punches and the power plays that came with them to secure the win.
"We have to play a disciplined game of hockey," Carolina coach Paul Maurice said. "We don't take a lot of penalties, but we play hard. We finish checks, and if we've got to take some a little bit for the win, then we have to do that. I was really proud, especially Timmy Gleason, because Timmy's a tough customer. He can handle himself, but that was for the team. That's pretty important in the locker room and it goes a long way because everybody knows how tough Timmy is. It was a very unselfish play by him, and it certainly secured the win for us."
The Bruins didn't think much of Carolina's hit-and-run tactics, but they also took responsibility for losing their composure, and with it the game.
"Sometimes you go after a guy or a guy goes after someone and when someone comes after him he won't answer the bell, you know that happens," Marchand said. "He has a choice, sometimes you chose not to and that's part of the game, but you can't really let that affect how you play. It happens to us too, so we know it's part of the game, especially when they have a lead, they're not going to try to engage in anything that will give us momentum and that's all they were trying to do is stay away from that stuff."
Bruins coach Claude Julien, who was ejected himself in the final minutes, refused to direct the blame on the breakdown in discipline on anyone except his own team, which finished with 18 penalties for 82 minutes, while Carolina had just eight penalties for 22 minutes.
"We have to take responsibility for our own actions here," Julien said. "The easy thing is to point out at everybody. And I think what I saw from tonight is that we start off the game well. In the first period we had some great chances, but we're not capitalizing. And what I see is frustration setting in and the minute we start getting frustrated we lose focus on our game and then it gets worse and worse. And that's been a bit of a pattern this year.
"I would rather we look at ourselves and take the responsibility and fix that because the referees didn't lose the game for us tonight," Julien added. "We lost the game ourselves. We got ourselves back in the game and then we end up with a four-minute penalty and other penalties followed after that, and it just got worse."
