If the Bruins weren’t worried before, they should be now. 

The bigger, tougher, higher-scoring team with the best goalie in the world is two losses away from the backlash and disappointment that we all know will eventually just turn into hype for the No. 9 pick in June. 

After dropping Game 2 of the Eastern Conference quarterfinals, 3-1, the Bruins are just as close to evening things out as the Habs are to sweeping them out of a postseason in which big things were expected. 

If these Bruins don’t right the ship in Montreal (the last place one would expect them to find success this season) this won’t be a case of them “choking” or “blowing it.” This isn’t a series in which the B’s have had anything to give away. They’ve been the second-best team in this series from the get-go. 

The same Carey Price who played 72 games in the regular season has allowed one goal over two games, while Tim Thomas (the Vezina winner who just hasn’t received the trophy yet) has been human. Mathieu Darche has had more of an impact on the series than David Krejci, Milan Lucic. Nathan Horton is playing with an edge, but was so reckless Saturday that he broke his stick after a shift. In the third period, Claude Julien finally broke up the top line and put Horton on the third trio. 

If you want to question a defenseman, there are plenty of guys to choose from, but it should not be the captain. Nobody outside of the black and gold walls knows exactly what is ailing Zdeno Chara (a combination of things including dehydration), but at face value, doubting the toughness of a guy who takes the game as seriously as Chara (and played 81 games in the regular season) sounds pretty foolish.

Luckily for B’s fans, if they want to point a finger at a “star” defenseman, there’s still another candidate. Chara not being out there meant increased minutes for other guys, and a team-leading 28:04 for Tomas Kaberle was not a pretty sight – and the grace period for the new guy might be coming to an end just as quickly as the Bruins’ season. 

In a sign that some statistics in hockey just may be overrated, Kaberle managed to piece together a plus-1 with four shots on goal (tying a personal high for shots since being acquired), which would suggest one of his better nights in a Bruins uniform. That doesn’t account for the struggles he had keeping the puck in the zone on routine plays and the lack of instincts to step up when needed. 

One of Kaberle’s shots Saturday was a potential game-changer – a second period shot on the power play would have tied the game at two were it not for it hitting the post – but the free-agent-to-be has been a mammoth disappointment since coming to Boston in February.  Whether they do is unclear, but the Bruins should give a whole lot of thought to whether the poor-skating, seldom shooting Kaberle is going to be worth the somewhere-in-the-neightborhood-of-$4-million he might command on the open market. It was the right move to make at the time, but there has been little evidence that the trade that sent Joe Colborne and at least a first-round pick (more if the B’s do well enough in the playoffs or re-sign the defenseman) to Toronto for Kaberle has been anything but a bust. 

There is no quick fix to what ails the Bruins, aside from actually scoring the first goal of a game, and the first six minutes of the first two games (an area in which the Habs have combined to score three goals to the Bruins’ none) suggest the B’s are at a disadvantage in that department. Once the Bruins can score the first goal of the game (if they can), they should know the rest of the story. Johnny Boychuk’s goal 1:01 into the March 24 game signaled the end of the Habs’ efforts in what ended up being a 7-0 shellacking. Yet through two games, it has been Montreal that has gotten the first goal. And the second goal. Of course, when a team has scored just once through the first two games of a series, you can’t expect much success anyway.

Speaking of solutions, perhaps it is time to put Tyler Seguin in the lineup, but it would not be an overdue action. People want to think that if Seguin were in the lineup, the B’s would have a 2-0 lead and that potential future opponents would be distracted in their current series by the thought of facing the Bruins. Apparently, a year of expecting too much of the No. 2 overall pick hasn’t taught us anything. 

This isn’t a matter of motivation with Seguin. He’s 19 years old and wants to prove he deserves every minute he gets. He stays out on the ice after practice. He puts on a happy face through the healthy scratches. It isn’t like Seguin was kicking his feet up in the regular season and saving it for the playoffs. He was growing and becoming more comfortable in the NHL. If he ends up going back in the lineup, that’s probably what he’ll continue to do: grow and learn. He’s still getting a feel for physical play and going in the corners (something he’s admitted he didn’t have to do when he dominated the OHL), so it may be a bit unfair to expect him to jump in and find it the way Phil Kessel did back in 2008. 

Unfortunately, the Bruins simply have more questions than answers at this point. The bigger and better team needs to serve a reminder that they are the latter, and considering the next stop is the Bell Centre (the same place they racked up zero wins in three regular season games this season), they’ve got their work cut out for them.