Bruins head coach Claude Julien was not happy with the way his team performed defensively.

For the second straight game, the Bruins defense was non-existent, this time leading to a 5-0 loss aginst the Minnesota Wild. Julien’s Bruins have allowed nine goals in their last two games.

Looking at the team stats, (20th in goals allowed per game and 15th in shots allowed per game) the Bruins defense does not look all too bad. But the Bruins certainly are not passing the naked eye test.

“But you know, our game right now has to be better without the puck and the kind of goals we’re giving up are killing us. They’re taking momentum out of our hockey club and we’ve had some decent starts we haven’t been rewarded for,” a frustrated Julien said during his postgame press conference last night.

“We haven’t scored first now in six games, so you’re playing that kind of a game and the minute you give up a goal you’re playing from behind,” added Julien. “So, you’ve got to find a way to score that first goal, but at the same time, I think we need to be much better without the puck and respecting that part of our game a little bit better. And the mistakes or the lack of coverage or not being in the right place right now is doing a lot of damage to our game and it’s hurtful at the end because you end up with this kind of a result.”

The Bruins failure to bring in top-four defenseman was well documented this summer, and that failure is starting to shine brightly. Thankfully for the Bruins, 19-year-old rookie Brandon Carlo has closed that gap a bit, but still, they simply do not have enough talent on their blue-line to get them by.

“I think that we have to play much tighter, defensive. And like you said, we have to pay attention to the detail,” captain Zdeno Chara said. “That goes for the whole game and all over the ice. If we are not going to be doing that, then, obviously, we’re going to give the other team advantages and scoring chances against.”

After a solid opening 20 minutes behind rookie goaltender Malcolm Subban Tuesday night, the Bruins fell apart in the second period allowing four goals in the frame. Defensive miscues were once again the root of the problem.

“Well, it definitely is an issue, and we tried to address it and we needed to be better, but the biggest thing is – we give up two quick goals in that period that just deflated us at that point,” stated Julien.

The Bruins are smart enough to identify the mistakes and know what they need to do to correct them, but correcting them still is not enough for a weak Bruins d-core. Even with arguably the best defensive forward in the game in Patrice Bergeron, the Bruins play in their own zone has been their Achilles heel.

“I think we got away from playing our game. You know we talked about the second period being you know a tough one for us and we had to kind of get back to playing a simple game and didn’t do that,” Bergeron said Tuesday of their second period defensive woes. “You know they came back at us and got the better of the puck battles, and when that happens, you know, you can’t have success.”

The Bruins got some experience back in Tuesday’s loss as Adam McQuaid made his 2016-17-season debut, but the veteran defenseman looked a bit rusty and lost some key puck battles in the Bruins’ defensive zone.

Sure the Bruins were at a disadvantage without Tuukka Rask and Anton Khudobin, both of whom are nursing separate injuries, but regardless of who was in net, the defense was not up to par and really has not been in the last week or so.

“Well, that’s when it has to be at it’s best, not when you have a couple of young guys – never mind the young guys – at a time, I don’t care who’s in net,” Julien stated. “I think when you have some injuries you need to be better in those situations, and we weren’t good enough tonight.”

The Bruins don’t have much time to correct their issues as they turn right around and take on the New York Rangers tonight at Madison Square Garden. If the Bruins are unable to fix their defensive issues, then it’s going to be another long night for Julien and company.