Season has started up, but team hasn’t

They’re engaged, but only sometimes. They hit, but not nearly enough. They think, but their thoughts wander to risky places even AIG workers wouldn’t dare go. There is nothing at all special about their special teams, which yesterday went a listless 0 for 5 on the power play and killed only one of three shorthanded situations.

To make matters worse (read: embarrassing), the power-play unit actually yielded a goal, Colorado’s David Jones walking in all alone from the neutral zone and nailing a short-range wrister for what was the Avalanche’s final goal in their 4-3 triumph yesterday afternoon at the Garden.

“Really thought I was there, but just couldn’t save that,’’ said Bruins netminder Tuukka Rask, reliving the Jones shot that beat him high to the glove side. “That’s the kind of save you want to make to keep your team in the game. You save that, and you get the momentum back.’’

Thus far in 2009-10, the Bruins can’t find a way into their season. Other than one good night of beating up the Hurricanes, they’ve been kept at arm’s length by the likes of the Capitals, Ducks, Islanders, and Avalanche. Had the Islanders not shooed themselves away Saturday night after working with a 3-0 lead in the third period, the Bruins now would be looking at a 1-4 start to the season and the prospect of general manager Peter Chiarelli reaching down to Providence for a few good call-ups (Messrs. Vladimir Sobotka and Brad Marchand?).

“I thought we gave ourselves chances with our effort,’’ noted coach Claude Julien, who figures his charges are heeding his words but failing to execute at critical points in the action, “but we ruined it with bad decisions.’’

Among the worst of the boo-boos in Game 5 - and again, it’s early, folks - was defenseman Andrew Ference opting to charge into a pileup in front of the Boston bench with about 16:45 gone in the second period. With the Bruins on the power play, three of Ference’s teammates were knocking around in a scrum with winger T.J. Galiardi. Rather than holding his ground at right defense, Ference stepped toward the fray, only to see Galiardi slip away from three black shirts and feed a breaking Jones. Seconds later, with Michael Ryder chasing from behind, Jones dotted the top right corner on Rask and the Bruins were back in a two-goal deficit (4-2).

Bad choice by Ference, even worse outcome - one in a series that ran through the fabric of most of the five-game home stand.

“Not the home stand we were looking for,’’ observed veteran winger Mark Recchi, who potted his first goal of the season, cutting a 2-0 deficit in half early in the second period. “It seems we go in spurts, everything is great for a while, then we just don’t do it for a while.

“And let’s not kid ourselves, teams are ready for us. They come in hungry and determined not to be embarrassed. And right now, we are not up to that challenge.’’

Maybe the two upcoming road games (Dallas on Friday, Phoenix on Saturday) will take a sad song and make it better. Recchi and others in the room talked about the prospect of getting on the road, returning to simple ways, and tapping into the brotherhood, unity, and focus that often develop better on the road than at home.

Why is that? Just another of those hockey mysteries. It’s hardly a guarantee the Bruins will come home a better team, but it’s an all-but-certain bet that they can’t come home worse. They turned the first five games of the season into an extension of the exhibition schedule, during which, by the way, they lost both games on home ice. Right now, preseason included, they are 2-5 on Causeway Street, which isn’t doing much for the young men and women down in the Fan Relations Department, where the mantra right now must be, “Well, we’ll always have Papelbon.’’

For his part, Julien believes he has his team’s attention. Only he would truly know that, because he’s the guy giving orders and watching if Player X is following order A, B, or C. He says his guys get it, even if the naked eye and the replay machine reveal too many gaffes and far too much lackadaisical play.

This is not a team that won the Stanley Cup. This is a club that tore up the Habs in Round 1 of the ’09 playoffs, then went into a deep funkarama in Round 2 that led to a Game 7 knockout by Carolina. But thus far, these guys look like they won the Cup in June and they’re still trying to rub the champagne from their eyes and the layers of adulation and attaboys from their shoulders.

Freshen my memory here, folks, but did I miss out on one of those rolling parades? Did someone spray-paint the Duck Boat flotilla Black and Gold while I was staring at the sunsets over the Charles and the Green Monster all summah?

“There were a lot of things that you can put into place that were going to make it challenging,’’ said Julien, enumerating the many injuries and surgeries his players had to overcome in the offseason, as well as a shortened training camp. “We knew it. We talked about it before the season and we said, ‘It’s going to be a grind.’

“I don’t think we are surprised that it’s a grind, we’ve just got to work our way through it. Right now, I think the players in there care. I think they want to . . . it’s just been a grind.’’

That’s a coach doing what he should do, building a wall around a team that just isn’t good right now and has yet to engage emotionally or physically. But at some point, and soon, they have to show a lot more passion and pluck to make their audience, one that got a slight taste of the good times last year, believe that 2008-09 was something more than a tease.

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