“I was caught in the middle of the railroad track. I looked around, and knew there was no turning back.” – AC/DC, Thunderstruck.

Those lyrics of Thunderstruck from Brian Johnson, the lead singer of the legendary Australian hard rock band AC/DC, are a perfect metaphor to describe the Boston Bruins with nine games left in the 2014-15 season.

The train that’s coming directly at the Bruins at this point isn’t picking them up on the way to the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Instead it’s going right through them when it stops to drop off 16 other teams to their postseason destination.

Sunday’s 5-3 loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning marked the fifth straight defeat for the Black and Gold. At this time last week, they were facing the Washington Capitals for seventh place in the Eastern Conference. One week later, they find themselves leading the ninth place Ottawa Senators, who have two games in hand on the B’s, by just one point for the East’s final wild card spot.

“Frustrating,” Brad Marchand said to the press following Sunday’s loss to the Bolts. “You look at other teams we’re battling and they’re going at it every single night. We don’t know if we’ll get that each night.”

Sunday’s loss also continued a trend that surrounds the Bruins’ roller coaster season. At times, they look like a very solid squad and go on some solid runs of five, six or even seven wins in a row. At other times, they look like a team not ready for primetime and follow suit by dropping five or six in a row.

The Bruins play well against certain teams ahead of them in the standings like the Detroit Red Wings, New York Islanders and Pittsburgh Penguins. They follow that with losses to bottom feeding teams like the Edmonton Oilers and Buffalo Sabres, who are tanking for one of the two coveted picks in this year’s draft to select either Canadian sensation Connor McDavid or Boston University standout Jack Eichel.

The roller coaster 2014-15 season could also be described as another term labeled by the Bruins’ media in the past.

“There’s been years where I think you guys have labeled us [as] a Jekyll and Hyde team. Maybe we deserve that title again this year,” Chris Kelly said to the media. “I really wish I could put a finger on why we play so well for stretches and then we kind of lose that, and we need to recapture [the stretches where we play well].”

Recapturing their mojo will be easier said than done when the Bruins return to action after a four-day layoff. The Western Conference leading Anaheim Ducks will be at TD Garden on Thursday followed by a red-hot New York Rangers squad on Saturday.

The Bruins will need that mojo in the last nine games of the season and some help along the way. They could get that Monday night when the streaking Ottawa Senators welcome a desperate San Jose Sharks team to Canada’s capital city.

Still, the way the Bruins’ season has gone, the frustration level of not getting the job done is getting higher. And if they can’t do anything about it, their season will be “struck down” for good.

“Right now it’s a matter of being committed to the game and the system,” said Marchand, who dropped the gloves with Lightning superstar Steven Stamkos in the most unusual of fights on Sunday. “We all need to be better. If we’re not, it will cost us our season.”