Gone in 60 minutes

This year?

Don’t ask. Don’t tell. Don’t look.

For the second time in three home games, the Bruins last night rolled out their “D’’ game, looking mostly “dull,’’ quite often “disinterested,’’ sometimes almost comically “discombobulated’’ in an embarrassing 6-1 loss to the Anaheim Ducks.

They are now 1-2 in the 2009-10 season, and those two losses, including the opening-night clunker against the Washington Capitals, might suggest that they surrendered too much of their magical mojo with offseason decisions to dump the likes of Aaron Ward, P.J. Axelsson, even Stephane Yelle.

Phil Kessel? As in Game 1, Kessel’s abundant speed wouldn’t have mattered much on a night when most of the Black-and-Gold were unable to gain either an emotional or physical foothold.

So tepid was their physical response, it was questionable whether they even wrestled with their thoughts.

“It’s been tough for us,’’ said Steve Begin, the newly arrived center who pivots the fourth line for Shawn Thornton and Byron Bitz. “We didn’t show any emotion in the second and third period. As a team, we have to play with an edge. Every team that comes in here is afraid to lose against us. They’ll try to outwork us. That’s how it will be every night. Just no emotion out there. We played a terrible game.’’

The fourth line, which was also the best line in the season opener, cobbled together 12 of Boston’s 34 shots. That included a half-dozen by strongman Thornton, who a couple of times flashed some artistic touches with the puck, both stickhandling and in attempts on net.

What we are talking about here, folks, is the fourth line, which is somewhat like going to an auto show full of Lamborghinis, Ferraris, and Bentleys and leaving the show full of praise for the Kias and Hyundais and Saturns.

Please. Is this the ride anyone expected after last season’s 53-19-10?

Too much praise for a fourth line, agreed coach Claude Julien, “doesn’t bode well,’’ adding, “other than that, no one played up to potential.’’

There is the nut of this crazy bunch right now. What is their potential? They toughened up in the middle, moving Begin in for Yelle. Ward’s exit made room for Matt Hunwick to play full-time, and the speedy backliner finished a minus-2 last night, offering little resistance on the Evgeny Artyukhin goal that made it 4-1 early in the third period. Artyukhin steamed down the left side and bulled by Hunwick, leveraging his 6 feet 5 inches and 254 pounds over and by the 5-11, 190-pound Hunwick. Even the bigger Ward would have struggled in the matchup, but it would not have been such a breeze-by.

Axelsson’s exemplary penalty killing could have been an asset early in the second when Teemu Selanne, the 39-year-old Finnish Flash, knocked in a pair of power-play goals, the first to pull even, 1-1, and the second to go ahead for good. Selanne put the hammer down on a one-timer in the slot for No. 1, which came on a five-on-three advantage. Only 83 seconds later, he canned No. 2 with a master craftsman’s backhand tuck at the left post with a one-man advantage.

Selanne now has 581 career goals, 1,214 career points. If he had more nights in the league with so little impeding his progress, he might be closing in on Wayne Gretzky’s record 894 goals.

“Both games,’’ said Julien, referring to losses to the Capitals and Ducks, “were a result of not being able to handle a little bit of adversity. We lost track of what he had to do out there.’’

That was particularly true, and likewise bewildering, when the Bruins worked with their own power plays (0 for 6). Their worst showing came soon after Selanne’s second strike, with the Bruins bottled up in their end, unable to move the puck over their defensive blue line for the first 40 seconds. The mystified Garden crowd began booing, with the likes of Saku Koivu and Ryan Getzlaf forcing the puck all the way to the rear wall.

Not in synch. Listless. A team in search of an emotional rescue that never came. Much like the opener, they played fairly well in the first period, then disappeared into a mental fog over the final 40 minutes.

“Right now,’’ mused Julien, “we are making it way too easy. We as a coaching staff have to do something about it - that’s what we intend to do.’’

So look for Tuukka Rask in net tomorrow night when the Islanders come to town. Julien noted that Tim Thomas’s play was subpar, lumping him in with just about everyone else other than Rask (on gatekeeper duty) and the fourth line. Also pencil in rookie defenseman Johnny Boychuk, who probably could sub for any of the defensemen other than Zdeno Chara or Derek Morris.

“We have to be consistent, and we’re not,’’ said Thornton, whose half-dozen shots equaled his combined totals over some six-game stretches last season when he hit the net a career-high 136 times. “We are too good of a team for this. We have to figure it out in a hurry. It’s early, but we have to figure it out.’’

Sounds like the fourth line gets it. Maybe now some of the pricier models, their gear boxes stuck in neutral, can figure it out.

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