It was a nice try - but a trying result

Michael Ryder hits the ice after getting entangled with Martin Skoula during the second period. (David Kamerman/Globe Staff)

Even when teams are playing their best - and right now, the Bruins are a cut or two below their best - it's hard to look good against the Wild.

"They're notorious for it," said Bruins rookie Blake Wheeler, a favorite son of Minnesota and a faithful follower of the Wild in both high school and college. "It's talked about a lot there . . . you know, Coach Lemaire's system."

The Bruins, less than a week removed from the good, good, good times of a 10-game winning streak, last night were on the wrong side of a 1-0 snoozer at the Garden. Jacques Lemaire's Wild outdefensed, outpositioned, and outlasted the Eastern Conference leaders, sending the Bruins to a second straight loss in regulation for the first time in 2008-09. Not to mention sending a crowd of 16,272 into a stupor.

The good news from Causeway Street: The Bruins did not play poorly. They were OK, average, their performance a gentleman's "C" in the grand scheme of things. Trouble is, the Wild chew up and spit out a gentleman's "C" by adhering to Lemaire's thorough, if boring, defensive game plan, and that's exactly what happened over the course of 60 minutes.

"I thought we were competing pretty good tonight," said Bruins captain Zdeno Chara. "At the same time, we need to improve - there is always that room to improve.

"This was just one of those games where we tried to get it going and things didn't work. We have to make sure we keep our energy up, our heads up, and get ready for the next game. We know it's not going to be a season of win 10 or 15 games, then lose a game, and then go back and win 10 or 15 more in a row. It's just not like that."

Teams can raise their compete level and still lose. Coaches usually are OK with that. Some are even honest enough to voice their disappointment when they've won despite having "too many passengers," too little effort, on a given night.

Bruins coach Claude Julien was clearly, in fact emphatically, displeased with Saturday's tepid effort that resulted in a 4-2 loss to the Sabres. His club had won 10 in a row, and as good as things have been this season for the Spoked-B franchise, even Julien, deep down, had to expect his club would lose, you know, at least once more.

"All good things must come to an end," he lamented after Saturday's loss.

But . . . it was the method of the loss that Julien found maddening. For most nights in the first half of 2008-09, the Bruins have been among the hardest-working franchises in the Original 30. Hard work wins. That's the Julien mantra. When the work wasn't there Saturday, Julien came to work Monday with a mind, and a voice, to capture everyone's attention.

During a 75-minute workout at Ristuccia Arena, he stopped the practice at least three times to underscore his point. He repeatedly slapped his stick blade on the ice, then would lift it in the air as if to draw an imaginary exclamation point above his head, and bellow his orders. A sharp contrast to his predecessor, Dave Lewis, whose one year on the job featured workouts that were, shall we say, short on instruction and emotion.

After watching his club's loss to the Wild, Julien noted that his team is in a funk, in part because some front-line players - the likes of Andrew Ference, Aaron Ward, Patrice Bergeron, and Marco Sturm - have been sidelined. Eventually, that has to catch up, and that's the case for the Bruins right now.

"It's hard really to judge or critique the compete level when our players are not at their best," said Julien. "We have a lot of guys fighting the puck right now. In a season, every team goes through it, and right now . . . we're going through it."

Much of Monday's workout emphasized the need to be better on the forecheck. Too easily, Julien told his charges, the opposition of late has been able to move the puck out of its end. The result: In four of the six games prior to last night, the Bruins finished on the short side of the shot count.

Shot totals can be deceiving, but in many cases, the team with more had the better night in terms of carrying the play, if not putting the puck in the net. The Bruins finished with a 28-24 edge in shots, but Minnesota carried the play, and never felt much heat under Boston's forecheck.

The Wild, perfectionists at bottling up the ice (why we respectfully refer to them as the Trappist Wonks), limited the Bruins to a half-dozen shots in the first period. Meanwhile, Minnesota could put only five shots on Manny Fernandez.

Not what you would call raucous entertainment, or entertainment of any sort. But that's Lemaire's way. He won a Cup in New Jersey (1995), smack in the middle of the Dead Puck Era, by sucking the life out of the game with suffocating three-zone defense.

The Bruins were flat for the start of the second. Worse, they sent a slow trickle of guys to the penalty box: Stephane Yelle, then Matt Hunwick, followed by Milan Lucic. One sure way to dampen a club's compete level is to work shorthanded.

Finally, the Black and Gold indiscretions caught up, and with 7:29 gone, Marek Zidlicky (with Lucic in the box) skated backward off the right point and fired in a 50-foot slapper. Dangerous business, falling behind against the Wild, especially on home ice. Zidlicky's shot was the 10th of the period for the Wild, and the Bruins had yet to put one on Niklas Backstrom at the other end. Give Lemaire a one-goal lead, and even with 32 minutes to play, he can have a club nurse its way to a pair of points.

"It might have been better, but I don't think it was good enough," said Wheeler. "As a team, we know we've gotten away from some of the things that made us successful. We're at a time here where we have to look at ourselves in the mirror a little bit and get back to those things."

The list, according to Julien, includes being first to the puck, winning battles for loose pucks, and not trying to force plays.

"I don't think that's so much about the other team," he said. "It's about us. Our game just isn't there right now."

Kevin Paul Dupont can be reached at dupont@globe.com.