Bruins look to get back on track on the road

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By Joe Haggerty
CSNNE.com

The Bruins built up the third-best road record in the Eastern Conference last season, and poured the foundation for their Stanley Cup run with a 10-day trip to Europe to begin the season.

The Bs actually struggled on their own home ice for long stretches of the regular season before catching fire late in the year, and some of their finest moments came together in rinks not named TD Garden. So with that in mind, Boston will lick their wounds at a Tuesday morning practice at Ristuccia Arena, and then set off for a two-game road trip that will take the Bruins through Carolina and Chicago.

We need to be together as a team and go out there on the road, said Patrice Bergeron. We can't panic right now. Yeah, we have to be better and, yeah, we have to expect the best out of every team.

It's a real challenge, so we have to go into Carolina and have our heads up. We need more. We need to be better.

The trip will span six days and give the Bruins a chance to get out of dodge after managing only win in their first three home games of the year, and totaled only a single goal in the two losses while getting inundated with Stanley Cup hoopla.

Both the Hurricanes and Blackhawks are expected to have playoff-caliber teams this season, so they wont be easy games for the Black and Gold. But perhaps thats a good thing after the Bs players failed to properly wake up against the lowly Colorado Avalanche Monday afternoon at the Garden.

I dont think going on the road is going to hurt, but at the same time I really think its more about our approach to the game thats going to make a difference, Claude Julien said. Now whether that helps getting away to get us focused and being in the hotels, being around each other and knowing the purpose of us being on the road certainly could help. As you know at home there are always more distractions.

Its important that the Bruins dont view the road as a cure all given some of the consistency issues in a pair of home games at the Garden, but the road isnt quite so cold and unforgiving at the NHL level.

The Bruins learned their first important lesson of the new season when they paid dearly for overlooking an Avalanche team at the Garden, and there should be a few more learning moments on the road over the coming week.

Joe Haggerty can be reached at jhaggerty@comcastsportsnet.com. Follow Joe on Twitter at http:twitter.comHackswithHaggs

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