Even with the Bruins entering the week buoyed by back-to-back shutout wins against Philadelphia and Seattle, Jim Montgomery pushed back against an assertion on Monday that Boston had fully righted the ship from an early-season malaise.
"I'm not there yet with that," Montgomery noted. "Just being honest. There's too many lapses in our game right now where we're not a 60-minute team and we just need to continue to build it. We're better, but we're not where we need to be."
Sure enough, the positive gains made over the weekend were negated on Tuesday for the Bruins, with many of the flaws present in October rearing their collective heads in a 4-0 loss to the Maple Leafs.
The 2024-25 Bruins played the hits en route to their first regular-season loss to Toronto since Nov. 5, 2022: a parade of skaters heading to the sin bin, woeful special-teams play, and a shortage of high-danger chances generated at 5-on-5 play.
The Bruins have already been shut out three times over their last eight games.
"I mean our special teams -- the numbers are the numbers, right? And the players that get the privilege of either being on the penalty kill or power play -- along with us coaches, need to be better with our plan, and we need to be better in our execution," Montgomery noted postgame.
Despite entering Tuesday's game with the 31st-ranked power play (10 percent), the Maple Leafs cashed in with three power-play tallies against Boston -- marking the fourth time already this season that the Bruins have relinquished three or more power-play tallies in a game.
Once a pillar of strength for Boston, the Bruins' penalty kill now ranks 20th in the NHL with a kill rate of just 76.2 percent.
"I think we're allowing them to kind of get into the zone a little too easily," Brandon Carlo said of the PK's woes. "I think last year, there were a lot of times we would kind of eliminate things by the blue line and have a lot more pressure.
So I think we need to start kind of pushing out a little bit more, using our sticks and our bodies to create more pressure, not giving them so much time. ... Our penalty kill is something that I take a lot of pride in, this group takes a lot of pride in, and it needs to get better."
Granted, one of the reasons for Boston's dip in PK proficiency this season might reside in just how overtaxed the Bruins' shorthanded unit has been.
In total, the Bruins took eight penalties on Tuesday at Scotiabank Arena, although one was technically a matching penalty. Through 14 games, Boston has already been whistled for 79 penalties -- 12 more than the next team in the NHL (Kings).
While several lapses in discipline (three penalties in a span of 2:18 led to a pair of Toronto tallies in the second period) put Boston in a sizable hole, the Bruins also did little to claw back into the contest due to their sputtering power play.
Despite being handed six opportunities on the man advantage, the Bruins failed to cash in on any of them -- with Boston's power play now 28th in the NHL with a 13.3 percent conversion rate.
"I think we had looks. We have had some chances," Elias Lindholm said. "Sooner or later, it's gonna go our way. I think obviously, it's frustrating. Their PP won them their game. So it's frustrating when our PP can't win the game for us."
Bruins' power-play outage has carried over from the tail end of last season. But Boston is also laboring in generating quality looks at 5-on-5 play.
Over 38:32 of 5-on-5 ice time on Tuesday, the Bruins actually held a slight edge in shot attempts over Toronto, 36-33. But Boston only generated a season-low two high-danger scoring chances during that stretch -- rarely testing Toronto netminder Anthony Stolarz.
A revamped second line of Pavel Zacha, Charlie Coyle, and Justin Brazeau regularly tilted the ice in Boston's favor, with the Bruins holding a 10-0 edge in shot attempts during their 4:58 of 5-on-5 reps. But again, that led to zero high-danger looks.
Several of the encouraging signs the Bruins displayed over the weekend regressed on Tuesday.
Still, Montgomery opted to take a positive tone when asked about the state of his team amid yet another setback.
"Our group's fine. You know, we feel we're getting better," Montgomery said. "Our habits and details are growing. You don't like losing 4-0. They got three power-play goals.
"So we look at our five-on-five game, we don't think we're giving up that much. Offensively, we're starting to build. We still don't get the O-zone time that we would love to have, but that's a work in progress."