March isn't a good time for team to be in free-fall, so with 11 games remaining in the regular season, the Bruins, 1-3-3 over their last seven games, are hoping consecutive days at Ristuccia arena for the first time in a while will do the trick. While the town laments their play of late, the players in the room are just trying to diagnose the issue and remedy it. 

"We know we haven't been as sharp. The energy and jump in some of the games, we're lacking," Zdeno Chara said after Sunday's practice. "We need to go back to our identity and what we do best."

None of this is uncharted territory for Mark Recchi -- not that anything really is this deep into his career. In March of 1991, the Penguins wrapped up a disappointing 1-4-1 road trip, and with 14 games remaining in the regular season, they returned home in hopes of getting it together as they made their way into the playoffs. The team responded by going 6-0-1 over their next seven games, and posted a 9-3-2 record to finish the season after that bad road trip. 

As Bruins fans know, things ended up working out for the Penguins. After pushing their way past the Devils and Capitals, the Penguins eliminated the B's in six games before defeating the North Stars for the Stanley Cup. 

Recchi also saw his eventual Cup-winning 2005-06 Hurricanes team slump at what seemed like the wrong time of the season. After losing in Atlanta on April 1, the Hurricanes found themselves with a 5-6-2 record over their last 12 games, and with just six games remaining in the regular season, they, like the Penguins in '91, picked it up. Carolina went 4-1-1 in those final six games, and Recchi went on to win his second Cup of his career. 

The lesson to be learned? That though a team would take winning over losing any day, Recchi has seen this before, and he's confident that this Bruins team, like his Cup-winning Penguins and Hurricanes teams before, can turn things around. 

"Every team is going to go through it at some point," Recchi said. "We're glad we're going through it now, and we've got 11 games to correct it."

One guy who is 33 regulation periods away from his first taste of the playoffs is Nathan Horton. Used to losing after playing the first six seasons with the Panthers, the forward expressed concern with the way things are going for the B's, but upon hearing Recchi's logic, hoped it could be applied for good. 

"That's a good way to look at it, but I don't think anybody wants to play like this at this time of year," Horton said. "Coming from him, he obviously knows from experience, but I can't imagine anyone wanted to do this right now at this time.

"We've just got to know that we can turn it around. We've got the players to do it, and we've got to come in with the right attitude, and hopefully things get better."

Though this is a far more crucial point of the season, the Bruins’ situation right now is similar in ways to how it was following their 3-0 loss to the Ducks on Dec. 20. The public reaction to the team’s play wasn’t pretty, and the Bruins set about taking two days at Ristuccia before making a statement game against Atlanta. Recchi hopes the B’s can once again use it to their advantage after a stretch in their schedule that, despite featuring just one playoff team over their last five, was made more difficult by travel. 

“We don't get enough time to practice, with the way the schedule is now,” Recchi said. “Rest sometimes is just as important, but when you do get an opportunity to get two days in and two good practices, it's very important. You make the best of it. You take advantage of it. You go out and work hard, and you try to get better at things. We'll be a better team for it, for sure.”

The words of Recchi might strike one as being a bit optimistic, but as Horton said, he speaks from experience. He’s seen teams slump late in the season, and he’s seen those same teams bounce back and end up with a Stanley Cup. 

“I think we'll be fine. I'm looking at the big picture, and I think this has been good,” Recchi said. “It's not a bad time to go through this. We've got 11 games to straighten it out, and I think we'll be fine.”