It’s been a weird stretch for the Bruins offense in their last three games.

On Wednesday, the Bruins got three pucks past Capitals’ goalie Braden Holtby, a guy who entering Wednesday had allowed just three goals in his previous five contests against the Black and Gold.

Then, in their last two games against two of the worst defensive teams in the National Hockey League in the Colorado Avalanche and Toronto Maple Leafs, the Black and Gold combined for just three goals in what turned out to be two losses.

That’s three goals on 64 shots.

“We’re getting chances, we can dissect all we want like I said. We’re getting chances, I’m going to dissect the game and I’m going to tell guys we need a greater presence in front of the net, we need to jump on those loose pucks – we talk about that all the time,” head coach Claude Julien told the media following Saturday’s loss.

“Sometimes it is there as you saw tonight – goaltender makes the big save. We’re not scoring goals, there’s times too we have players that miss the net too much, they got to start hitting the net and that will help as well.”

With a busy stretch of games coming up next week, the Bruins needed to find a way to earn some points against two teams who find themselves in the basement of the NHL. That was not the case as the team walked away with zero.

After Thursday’s lackluster performance against the Avalanche, Julien tinkered with his lineup as Noel Acciari and Danton Heinen were recalled from Providence in hopes of giving the team a spark. Anton Blidh was reassigned back to Providence and Jimmy Hayes was up on level nine as a healthy scratch.

Julien’s attempt at getting an offensive spark through some new blood, unfortunately, did nothing for the Bruins.

The Bruins had their chances to put pucks in the net. But between big saves from Maple Leafs’ goalie Frederik Anderson and missed opportunities, the Bruins fell to the Leafs 4-1 for the second time this season.

For opposing teams the key to beating the Bruins is easy. Completely take out or limit the production from the Bruins’ top line of Brad Marchand, Patrice Bergeron and David Pastrnak and you should be set up for success. The trio has scored 30 goals through 29 games this season. The rest of the Bruins roster has 37. It’s clear the Bruins are a top heavy team.

Marchand, who scored his eighth goal of the season in Saturday’s loss knows that guys inside their dressing room can put the puck in the net and that it’s only a matter of time before the Bruins’ other three lines start to light the lamp.

“We have a lot of guys that can score goals all the way through our lineup. We have to collectively come together and, whether it’s just get back to trying to be a little dirtier and get around the net a little more instead of trying to get pretty goals all the time,” said Marchand. “That’s normally what you do when things are going great and that’s what we’re going to have to get back to [scoring goals].”