The Bruins have it bad enough right now without being reminded of how bad it was last May. 

Yet on Wednesday, the B's, currently in the midst of a 5-6-2 slump, will have the chance to turn last season's devastation -- a blown three-games-to-none series lead in the Eastern Conference semifinals against Flyers -- into a motivating factor when they head to Philadelphia for the first time since Game 6. 

"We haven't been as good as we've needed to be as of late. We need to bounce back from a couple of bad games," Bruins forward Shawn Thornton said Monday. "This is the team that ended our season last year. You can't forget about that."

The Bruins held a 3-0 series lead and seemed to have momentum late in Game 4 when Mark Recchi tied the game at four with 31.5 seconds left in regulation. The Flyers went on to win in overtime on a goal from Simon Gagne, who was playing his first game of the series. 

From there, Philadelphia continued to gnaw away at the Bruins' stranglehold on the series, taking 4-0 and 2-1 victories in Game 5 and 6, respectively. The Bruins jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the decisive Game 7 behind a power play tally from Michael Ryder and a pair of goals from Milan Lucic. But the Bruins' lead in the game, much like that of the series, wasn't safe, and the Flyers mounted a final comeback that was capped with Gagne beating Tuukka Rask on a power play that was the result of a too many men on the ice call caused by Marc Savard. The series comeback made the Flyers just the third team in league history to salvage a series after dropping the first three games. 

Philadelphia went on to defeat the Canadiens in the Eastern Conference finals before eventually falling to the Blackhawks in the Stanley Cup finals in six games. The Bruins, meanwhile, spent the summer trying to recover from the biggest collapse in franchise history. 

"I haven't forgotten about it," Thornton said Monday. "I don't look far enough ahead in the schedule to circle anything, but we definitely shouldn't be forgetting about it."

Fast-forward to late November, and the idea of the Bruins scoring three goals in the first period is just as hard to believe as last May's postseason fate. In fact, the Bruins have scored three goals in the first just once this season, on Nov. 3 in Buffalo.

Instead of the heavy scoring early on, the Bruins have instead fallen into the habit of falling behind. They've struggled to score the first goal and have trailed after two periods in exactly half of their 22 contests thus far. 

"I would expect us to be more engaged off the hop, but we've obviously talked about that for a while now, and that hasn't been happening," Thornton said. "We had a good practice today, we'll have a good practice tomorrow and get ready for Wednesday." 

That seems to be the chief concern among Bruins players as Wednesday draws near. There's far more of a concern with trying to play a 60-minute game than there is with making a statement against the Flyers.  

"Obviously, there's a probably a little burning in our hearts over what happened last year, but we've just got to go out there and play hard for 60 minutes and come out with the win," B's defenseman Johnny Boychuk said.

The Bruins have scored just one goal over their last two games, and they haven't led since the third period of last Wednesday's game against the Panthers. 

"It seems like we come out, we're down a couple of goals, and we get up and try to come back," Boychuk said. "You can't always do that. You're going to shoot yourselves in the foot. It's not helping our cause when we don't score the first goal or two."

Regardless of whether the Bruins use the opponent as added motivation, they'll need a very strong effort in order to keep up with the Flyers. Peter Laviolette's club has lost its last two games in shootouts, but the Flyers still have 34 points, tied with the Penguins for second in the Eastern Conference, and they are third in both goals (3.4 per game) and goals against (2.4 per game). 

The Bruins need something to kick them into gear. Maybe it will be playing the Flyers. Maybe Adam McQuaid's return to the lineup following the Matt Hunwick trade somehow translates into new life. Maybe Savard jumps in and the team takes off. The Bruins can hope something suddenly clicks, but Thornton has a problem with waiting for something to come to them.

"We'll show up to work and continue to personally prepare to play the way we have the last however many years," Thornton said. "If something happens, it happens. We shouldn't wait for a spark. We should be trying to create that on our own."