Ladies and gentlemen, your last place Boston Bruins.  

It doesn’t matter how many games into the season we are -- it just doesn’t sound right. 

But that’s where the Bruins are in the Eastern Conference after dropping the first game of their home-and-home, 2-1, to Montreal. The defending Stanley Cup champions are looking up at the likes of Winnipeg and the Islanders, while only one team in the entire league -- the fantastically woeful Blue Jackets -- has less than their six points. 

Yes, it’s nine games in, and the talent the B’s boast is up there with the best of them, but there’s a difference between digging a hole and jumping to the bottom of it. Yet, less than five months after raising the Cup, that’s where they find themselves.

“I’d probably get nightmares thinking about how we’re playing right now more than anything else,” B’s coach Claude Julien said. “It’s more about our team right now. I don’t care where we are in the standings. What I care about is how we play, and right now, we’re not playing at all to the level we should be.”

To Julien’s point, the moral of the story isn’t merely that they’re a last-place team. Yes, they have unquestionably put themselves in a horrid position that will almost certainly make the rest of the season an uphill climb, but they have yet to show that the much-needed winning streak is around the corner.

On paper, it’s confusing as to how there isn’t a quick fix, a reallocation of these proven winners. Julien has tweaked the lines here and there, completely shaken them up, and then tweaked them some more, but the end result offensively has been 2.11 goals per game. In four of their nine games, they’ve scored one goal or, to put it kindly, less. That never happened once to the Bruins last October, but this, as has been made clear, is a different season. 

“Unfortunately, we’re not sitting here looking at one or two players you can move around,” Julien said. “You’re looking at the majority of the team. That’s where the issue is, and this is what we have to find a way to correct.”

The Bruins will have a chance to take baby steps out of this hole Saturday night in Montreal, but you can bet that’s going to be a tough Bell Centre environment with the Habs coming off their first back-to-back wins of 2011-12 (speaking of which, guess what the Bruins haven’t done this season?).

MARCHAND, SUBBAN FINALLY SQUARE OFF 

It looked like the fight that Brad Marchand and P.K. Subban so clearly wanted to engage in Thursday would never happen, but wouldn’t you know it? The two persistent pests never game up. 

The second-year players tried three separate times to fight before the refs would actually let it happen. Their first attempt resulted in matching holding minors. Subban then proposed they drop the gloves out of the box, and Marchand declined. When he asked him again shortly after, Marchand agreed, but they ended up having only delay of game minors to show for it. They then tried a third and final time to go when they got out of the box, and the stripes finally allowed it.  

The bout was underwhelming for fight enthusiasts, but highly entertaining for the mere fact of it being Marchand against Subban. They’re the two kids out of the Northeast division who it seems everyone hates, but would love to have on their teams. 

“We both like to aggravate the opponent,” Marchand said. “He just kind of gave me a shot, and that stuff happens. We’re both out there, we’re both emotional guys. And in a game like this we want to get our teams going and that’s the way to do it.”

The most notable part of the fight came early on, when Subban tried to make the fight short-lived with a big right. The punch wasn’t nearly as shark as his slap-shot, however, and he lost his balance, putting Marchand in an advantageous position. 

“I’m not a very good fighter, so, I guess you could say I was going for the knockout, but it was a pretty bad attempt,” Subban said. “So I don’t know, I’m probably better to keep my gloves on most of the time.”

Added Subban: “I’m going to probably have to go look at the video, and break it down with my friend Travis Moen there and Georges Laraque back in Montreal. We’ll probably sit down, look at the tape, break it down and make some improvements, cause it was a pretty bad attempt on my part.”

CAREY PRICE’S BILL BUCKNER MOMENT

Patrice Bergeron scored the easiest goal of his life in the first period when he lost a faceoff in the Canadiens’ zone to Tomas Plekanec, who drew the puck right back at his own net and past Carey Price to give the B’s a 1-0 lead. It was an unfortunate play for Plekanec, but a real softie for one of the best goaltenders in the league to allow. 

“I just Bill Bucknered it,” Price said after the game. “Just a mental lapse. I just went to go play the puck and I didn’t let go of my stick and it was in the back of the net.”

Price may not be a fan favorite here in Boston, but that’s a pretty good reference for a kid from Anahim Lake, BC. No word yet on Plekanec likening himself to Mookie Wilson.