The Bruins suffered another power outage on Thursday in their 3-1 loss to the Wild on Thursday (recap). While the rival Canadiens were gaining ground in the standings with a 2-1 shootout victory over the Penguins, the B's floundered offensively and went 0-for-4 on the power play. 

They have now gone four games without a power-play goal, and whatever tinkering Claude Julien has done — including giving Tyler Seguin an opportunity with the unit in the third period — isn't yielding results. 

With the B's now having gone 10 power plays without a goal, they find themselves smack-dab in the middle of the league with a 17.2 power-play success percentage that ranks 15th. 

While the team's struggles on the man advantage made for one of the uglier aspects of the loss, the bright spot was yet another goal for Steven Kampfer. The 22-year-old scored his third goal in five games when he fired a rebound of a Patrice Bergeron shot past Jose Theodore in the second period. 

"Steven’s been getting better every game. He’s one of those guys that supports [the] attack well, skates well," Julien said after the game. "We were talking about puck-moving defensemen, and he’s come up and provided us with that. And again, there’s a young player who’s certainly going in the right direction."

Here's the Hat Trick:

MARC DOWN (AND UP, AND DOWN, ETC.)

Turns out that when it comes to turnovers that single-handedly cost a team a game, two times is too many. Marc Savard put the fate of the game in the hands of Cal Clutterbuck when, with the Bruins tired and in need of a line change, his attempt at flipping the puck out of the zone yielded a lazily slid puck that found Clutterbuck right on the tape. 

With that, it went from a game tied at 1 to a game that the Bruins wouldn't find their way back into. It also earned Savard a spot on the bench — for the second time in recent memory — when Julien went with three lines to try to get better results in 5-on-5 play later in the period. 

"He put me right back out there [after the turnover]. I felt like that was good of him to give me a chance," Savard said. "Then he sat me down for a while. That is part of the game. You have to ask him. It's frustrating."

Savard saw a good chunk of time on the bench last Tuesday against the Lightning. He and Nathan Horton weren't among the players producing in that game, so to the bench they went. While Savard has made strides to become the player he was prior to his concussion last season, he has taken a somewhat more winding road than he had hoped for.

In fact, Thursday wasn't the first time this season he's committed such a costly turnover. It was a regrettable pass off the stick of Savard that Mike Richards grabbed in overtime to give the Flyers a 2-1 victory over the B's in December. In the grand scheme of things, this isn't the biggest challenge Savard has faced, but it sure has been a challenge for him to get to where he needs to be. 

"I feel like I get better, and then something like [the Clutterbuck turnover] happens. Then I get sat down. My confidence is swaying up and down like a boat," Savard said. "It gets tough, but I've been through a lot worse. I'm going to hang in there and whatever happens I’m going to keep trying to get better."

Julien didn't hide his action of sitting Savard (Shawn Thornton and Gregory Campbell also fell victim to the shortened bench).

"When you make a mistake like that, everybody’s got to be accountable," Julien said. "It’s one of those things that happens throughout a game, and from the first player to the last player, you want to make sure that everybody understands that it was a mistake that you don’t expect a guy like that to make. [It] doesn’t mean that you lose confidence in him, because you’re going to go right back with him next game and you hope that they bounce back. That’s what coaches do. They coach, and that’s what I did."

Savard can simply hope he limits the mistakes as he finds his game to avoid forcing Julien to break out the same method of coaching. 

RASK GETTING ON A ROLL DESPITE RECORD

A fair assessment of Tuukka Rask this season is that he hasn't truly gotten a chance to build up momentum, but that's nobody's fault. Tim Thomas is the best goaltender in the league, and a guy who the Bruins clearly want to play as much as they can without tiring him out. 

That's why it took until Jan. 6 for Rask, last year's leader in both goals-against average and save percentage, to get a third consecutive start. It's almost unbelievable to fathom. 

Yet that's the way it is. Everybody understands it, including Rask. He has said time and time again that Thomas' play has warranted the time he's gotten, and the young backup has been a good sport in just about every other way you could think of. Yet, being a good sport doesn't keep him sharp when he gets that elusive time between the pipes. That's what was on display when he allowed three goals in the first period against the Sabres on Saturday. 

The Bruins turned back to Rask after yanking him in that game, and Rask has been able to string together two impressive starts. Between Monday's 2-1 win over the Leafs and Thursday night's loss, he finally has that momentum that the circumstances have prevented him from picking up, with or without the results. 

"I try to feel good about myself every day and think positive, and, you know, the past couple games have been solid," Rask said after the game. "[It's] tough to lose like this, it’s kind of frustrating but you always try to feel good about yourself, but the last three games have been a step in the right direction."

Despite Rask's .928 save percentage, he is just 3-8-1 this season. The B's want better results for him, and they blame themselves for his deceiving record. 

"I think its awful that that kid plays so good for us all the time and we don’t get the wins for him," Thornton said. "We care about him and we should probably show it in a better way. He stood on his head for us pretty much every night and I don’t know [what] his save percentage is or something stupid like that. That should be good enough to win a lot of hockey games, so we have to look ourselves in the mirror as far as that goes."

QUESTIONABLE PENALTY PROVES COSTLY

Julien and Thornton each chose their words carefully when speaking to the media after the game, but there wasn't much for them to say on the subject of Thornton's hooking call that led to Martin Havlat's second-period goal. 

"You guys saw from upstairs," Thornton said of the general understanding that it was a blown call. "I can’t say anything obviously."

On the play, Brent Burns lost an edge in front of his own net, and it appeared that Thornton had a scoring opportunity when he took the puck. The whistle for a hooking call drew an immediate reaction of disgust from everyone, including Thornton, the bench and the fans. 

Thornton could be seen screaming from the penalty box, but four seconds of play later, he was a free man. Havlat beat Rask with a backhander to make it 1-0. 

"It wasn’t a penalty," said Julien, who spoke with two referees about the disagreement. "Yep. That’s a bad call."