(Photo: Bridget Samuels/Ikeastan Hockey) Bruins captain Zdeno Chara finished the night a minus-3 in what was a bad night for the Bruins defense

Coming into tonight’s game against the Buffalo Sabres all the talk was about Milan Lucic, Ryan Miller, John Scott and heavyweight fights. After the game the talk was all about Thomas Vanek and the Bruins “brain dead” defense.

The Sabres came into Boston Thursday night and handed the Bruins their first regular season loss of the season in a game that saw some very poor play by the Bruins blue-liners as the Sabres beat Tuukka Rask six times, and lit the lamp seven times in total.

“Defensively, I guess you would say, brain dead” said Bruins head coach Claude Julien in regards to the teams defense

You have to go back all the way to January 1, 2011 to find the last time the Bruins allowed seven goals in a single game. Ironically that loss was to the Buffalo Sabres.

“They’re good players. They make good plays, but I think it was more about us not playing well defensively” said Bruins captain Zdeno Chara.

The Bruins knew that tonight’s performance was very uncharacteristic of them.

“You would like to think so. We usually pride ourselves on defense and being a hard team to play against, and they had a lot of chances tonight from in close, and you can’t really feel too good for any of the goals” said Rich Peverley. “

“So we’ll have to regroup here and look to really play a better defensive game in Toronto.”

It was an all-around tough night for the Bruins as a team, but Chara finished the night with a minus-3 plus/minus rating.

“Yeah, sometimes you’re going to have nights like that” said Chara.” I didn’t play my best game, that’s for sure. I made some mistakes that cost us.”

Defensively the Bruins had no answer for Sabres forward Thomas Vanek. Vanek recorded a hat-trick and also added two assists.

“He’s a natural goal-scorer. I think he’s got a great shot. If he gets those one-timers, you just try to throw yourself out there and hope it hits you” said Rask. “Especially if it’s a wide pass like that one was. And then he gets a 2-on-1, dangles for 10 seconds there, I started swimming, and he roofs it. He scores goals if he gets those chances.”

The Bruins return to action Saturday night when they travel to Toronto to take on the Maple Leafs.

Hear what Milan Lucic and Tuukka Rask had to say after the loss.