A tough week for the Bruins grew a little bleaker Thursday as they were presented with the question of how they would play against one of the best teams in the league while skating without their two best centers and two of their top six defenseman.

After Chicago spotted Boston an early two-goal lead, the Blackhawks went to work over the final 50 minutes of hockey, taking a lopsided 5-2 victory (recap) over an undermanned and somewhat disjointed Bruins squad. Defenseman Duncan Keith scored two goals and assisted on another to lead the Chicago attack and help the Blackhawks win their fifth consecutive game.

The Bruins will face few challenges as daunting as the one they encountered on Thursday. A team that was already skating without Patrice Bergeron (thumb), Andrew Ference (groin) and Mark Stuart (sternum) lost skilled center Marc Savard to a knee injury 28 seconds after the opening faceoff.

Savard got tangled with Jonathan Toews along the right boards 10 feet inside the Chicago blue line and appeared to get his skates locked with Toews' before twisting to the ice.

Bruins coach Claude Julien indicated that Savard will undergo an MRI on his knee Friday. The Bruins will wait anxiously to learn the extent of the latest bit adversity to hit the team.

While no hockey team will use injuries as an excuse for subpar play, the Bruins were facing a formidable task skating against a fully loaded Blackhawks team atop the NHL standings. If the Bruins hoped to derail the Hawks Thursday, they would have needed a strong game from a full lineup, to say nothing of one missing Bergeron, Ference and Savard. 

Yes, it was possible that the Bruins could successfully overcome the loss of Bergeron and Savard by plugging Milan Lucic back into the lineup after missing 18 games and that Miroslav Satan could continue to move from sitting on his couch in Long Island Saturday to generating offense in the NHL days later. But it still would take a complete team performance to beat the Blackhawks, and the Bruins fell short of that standard Thursday.

That may say a lot more about the overall strength of the Blackhawks, who have now scored four of more goals in eight straight games, than it does about the weakness of the Bruins.

“I think to put things in perspective here, I think we had a good start, jumped to an early lead. Our second period really hurt us tonight,” Julien said. “But we’re battling with injuries. I thought with a team like this, probably the best team in the league right now, we had to really manage the puck well and we didn’t do that well enough tonight.”

The Bruins also did not get a great game from Tim Thomas, who was replaced by Tuukka Rask after giving up a back-breaking 50-foot wrist shot goal to Keith that pushed Chicago to a 4-2 advantage in the second period.

Thomas will bounce back and so, in all likelihood, will the Bruins, who will not face the likes of the Blackhawks every night. Here are three things to think about between now and when the Bruins have the opportunity to rebound.

WHEN THE BLACKHAWKS START TO PLAY, THEY CAN BRING IT

As was the case in Tuesday’s 4-1 win in Ottawa, the Bruins had a strong early attack and goal-scoring success in the opening minutes.

Blake Wheeler made a perfectly timed cut to the net, tipping a shot by Derek Morris past Chicago goalie Antti Niemi five minutes into the contest for his fourth goal in his last three games. After Wheeler forced a turnover near the Chicago net minutes later, Satan pounced on a loose puck, whirled and lofted a shot over Niemi for a his first Bruins goal and a quick 2-0 lead. 

Then, the Blackhawks took control.

After a botched clear in the Bruins zone, Kris Versteeg moved the puck to Keith at the point and he drilled a slap shot by Thomas at 12:49 of the first. The Hawks tied the game with 1:58 to play in the first on a goal by Tomas Kopecky off a sharp pass through the slot by Colin Fraser. Chicago finished the period with 17 shots. 

Just two seconds after the Bruins had finished killing a penalty at the start of the second period, Andrew Ladd pushed a loose rebound under Thomas to give the Blackhawks their first lead, 3-2.

“Obviously we got a lead and then we made some mistakes and let them come back in the game,” Bruins captain Zdeno Chara said. “Even after the first it was still 2-2 and then they got the power-play goal and got a lead, 3-2, and from that point, they were pretty much controlling the game. It was really hard to create something. We were just flat.”

Keith scored his second, sending a 55-foot wrist shot from the left point past Thomas midway through the second.

“Zdeno just happened to be cutting across the same exact time the guy let go of the shot. I never found the puck,” Thomas said. “I heard it hit the post and that was it.”

LUCIC WAS READY, BUT RUSTY

Playing in his first game since Nov. 25, Lucic skated on the Bruins' energy line, seeing 16:31 of ice time and matching Shawn Thornton with a team-high five hits. But Lucic failed to land a shot on goal and he was not crisp with the puck.

“It felt like my timing was a little bit off. I have to get that back a bit,” Lucic said. “My legs and conditioning are real good right now. It’s just the timing and all that other stuff that comes in by not playing for a while.”

Lucic went through a significant test midway through the opening period as he raced into the Chicago zone to fight for a loose puck behind the net. He and defenseman Brent Sopel arrived at the same time, with Lucic looking to drive Sopel through the boards. They toppled over, with Lucic twisting his lower body, but he didn’t appear any worse for the wear.

DOWN GOES FRASER

With Ference out for six weeks with a groin injury suffered Monday, Johnny Boychuk was called on to pick up additional ice time against Chicago. Boychuk was on the ice for two Blackhawks goals, but he also had one of the few Bruins highlights of the night, dropping Fraser, Chicago's light heavyweight, with a powerful right during an early third-period brawl.

The fight helped give the Bruins a bit of a spark.

“You could feel it in the whole building, it was just dead. So, I had to do something to spark up our team and try to get everybody back in the game,” Boychuk said. “We were down 4-2 in the third period, and you have to try and get something going to maybe build some momentum.”