Zadorov: Bruins 'easy to play against' amid 10-game skid
Bruins defenseman Nikita Zadorov was honest about the state of his team as Boston's losing streak hit 10 games after Thursday night's 4-1 defeat to the Montreal Canadiens.
"The other teams are just hungrier than ours," he said, according to NHL.com's Sean Farrell. "They want to win more, that's the bottom line. We're just not hard on the puck. We're easy to play against."
The last time the Bruins lost 10 games in a row was during the 2009-10 season, but they were able to turn things around with a 16-8-2 record the rest of the way. They ended up qualifying for the postseason before being eliminated in the second round.
These Bruins will have no such recovery, though, as they are 12 points out of a wild-card spot with six games remaining on their schedule. They also entered Friday's action in last place of the Eastern Conference with a 30-37-9 record.
Boston and Montreal were locked in a scoreless tie after the opening 20 minutes Thursday, but things quickly unraveled for the Bruins in the second period.
The Canadiens outshot the Bruins 17-2 in the middle frame and got on the board thanks to goals from Christian Dvorak and Cole Caufield. The Habs also dictated 90.3% of the expected goals while holding a 7-1 edge in high-danger chances at five-on-five, according to Natural Stat Trick.
"I mean everything," Zadorov said when asked what went wrong after the first stanza, per NESN's Gayle Troiani. "We didn't win any battles. Couldn't leave our zone. We got one shot, two shots on net in the last five minutes of the period."
Bruins forward Elias Lindholm has a simple solution for how to snap the skid.
"We need a 60-minute effort," he said. "We haven't had that in forever, I feel like. Probably the last time we won a game (March 11 agains the Florida Panthers). ... We play one period pretty good, and then we fall apart."
Boston has salvaged just one point during this stretch while getting outscored 46-18. The struggling squad has surrendered 16 of those goals in the second period and 17 in the final frame.
Despite his club's recent struggles, netminder Jeremy Swayman is doing his best to pull positives from the situation.
"I think that we just have to stay in the moment," he said. "It's extremely difficult to do, it's easy to say. But that's what makes diamonds out of us all, I think we have the mentality and are just learning so much as a group and as individuals.
"We're all gonna push through. Anyone that puts this jersey on knows that we have a job to do."
Boston will take on the Carolina Hurricanes at 7 p.m. ET Saturday.