The Bruins' goaltenders have been saying "that's hockey" an awful lot lately, and it hasn't been following poor individual performances.

On Saturday, it was Tim Thomas' turn to shrug off another home game in which a lack of offense (this time with a goose egg on the board to prove it) and sloppy play had a sellout crowd witnessing another loss. There's no two ways about it: The Bruins have been winning on the road, and, more recently, they've been losing at home.  

The most recent occurrence, which gave the Senators a 2-0 victory over the Bruins on Saturday, was particularly stale and warranted Claude Julien's comparison of Saturday's team to the same one that got crushed in the season-opener in Prague. 

The Bruins have two goals over their last nine periods at the Garden. To use a cliche, that won't beat anybody. Their leading scorer, Nathan Horton, has been kept off the scoring sheet completely in the Bruins' last four home games. Offense can't be generated, and the Bruins' goaltenders have paid the price for it. 

The closest the Bruins came to getting on the board was in the second period, when Blake Wheeler dove at a puck that was seemingly bouncing its way into the net, and accidentally got a glove on it. The no-goal call was confirmed after a video review. The Bruins lack of opportunities helped Brian Elliot pick up a shutout for the Senators in his 100th career start.  

BRUINS CAN'T RUN (OR FLY) FROM GARDEN STRUGGLES

That pesky NHL continues to schedule 41 home games a season, so whatever issues the Bruins are encountering -- sloppy play, the inability to generate offense, etc. -- will have to be addressed. On Saturday, they even struggled to pull off the cold start, hot finish act that has been a help when they have come out flat.

"We’ve got to get [the early] part of the game on totally another level," Zdeno Chara said after the game. "We’ve got to come out and establish the game plan that we kind of prepare for and, especially on home ice, we have to establish that.

"Right now, we’re kind of struggling with that to get that jump and that pressure we create sometimes on the road on quite a consistent basis. For whatever reason that is, we’re coming out flat and it takes up forty minutes to get going, so we’ve got to improve that. We’ve got to get better at that."

The Bruins will have a few chances to break out of the home-ice funk they're in the coming week, as they'll face the Devils, Panthers, and Kings at the Garden this week. 

THOMAS HANDED FIRST LOSS IN UNFORTUNATE FASHION

A loss had to come sometime for Tim Thomas, and with the way he's been going, one would have to figure that it would take a shutout from the opposition to hand it to him. Thomas joked after the game that he had lost before in his career, but the fact that it took him until Nov. 13 to lose is nothing short of astonishing. 

The way things played out for Thomas seemed to be more characteristic of a Tuukka Rask start: solid play and a couple of oddball goals. On Erik Karlsson's tally, Thomas didn't even know who had the puck due to a screen, and the defenseman's wrist shot from the point beat him without the goaltender getting an eye on it.

"It’s a terrible feeling as a goalie when you can’t find the puck. I couldn’t even find out who had the puck on that one," Thomas said. "It just disappeared behind bodies and by the time I saw it, it was past our last defenseman in the air." 

The other goal caught the Bruins off guard, as a puck bounced off the boards and right to Milan Michalek, who hit Daniel Alfredsson on a bang-bang play. Thomas clearly played well enough to win, stopping 31 of the 32 shots he faced, and even admitted that with the way he felt going in, he thought he had a win in him.

"I thought I was going to be 9-0 after tonight, you know, but it’s hockey," Thomas said. "It doesn’t always work out the way you want it to."

The good that the Bruins can take from the loss is that Thomas was superb once again, an indication that though he isn't the one-goal-allowed-tops guy he began the season as, he's still a very difficult goaltender to beat. The forwards just want to reward their netminders for such performances. 

"He's been great. Tuukka didn't deserve it the other night, Tuukka played great the other night, and we've got to start helping them out," Mark Recchi said. "They've been great for us. It's tough to see Timmy lose that, and it was a heck of a streak to start the year."

RECCHI REACHES 1000 PENALTY MINUTES THE UNEXPECTED WAY

Mark Recchi surpassed the 1000 penalty minute mark in fashion, dropping the gloves with Chris Campoli at 12:14 of the third in an attempt to inject some life into the stagnant Bruins. 

The fight took Recchi from 998 career penalty minutes to 1003, making him the 30th player in NHL history to reach 1000 points and 1000 penalty minutes. It was Recchi's first fighting major since 2004, making the milestone all the more notable.  

"I don't think you want to get it with a trip, that's for sure," Shawn Thornton said.  

Even so, the rare sight of Recchi dropping the gloves is a bit alarming. The veteran is obviously willing to do whatever it takes, but it was surprising that with Chris Neil (who Chara fought in the first period) ignoring Shawn Thornton's invitations throughout the night, it came to the 42-year-old being the one who had to step up late in the game. 

"I'm part of this team, too," Recchi said after the game. "Regardless of my age, I'm a leader on this team, and I've got to be there for everybody, and if I feel I can spark something, then I do it."