If you caught the Bruins holiday game yesterday, you should have now realized that the Bruins did play sloppy hockey.

Yet we can not come up with excuses and say it was because of injuries, because the Blues have the same problem, only magnified. But the absence of two of Boston's key players did not assist the Bruins on Monday.

Phil Kessel is out with a case of mono, and Milan Lucic with an undisclosed injury. Granted, Kessel is a speedy skater with a great shot with ability to score goals one after another. I would like to focus my piece on Lucic.

Being from St.Louis, but being a die hard Bruin fan, has shown me that St.Louis can be knocked around by physical teams, but without Lucic, it was a fire that was never ignited.

I feel the Bruins can be extremely physical, all they need is that push the Lucic is usually behind. Without Lucic, Boston can be left without the man that gets the team fired up.

But now back to Kessel: He is expected to be out for a month which will hit hard in the long run, with Kessel being a huge part of Boston's scoring power.

But when we get past these two unfortunate injuries, I say there is no need to sweat it. I have total confidence to Big Z the Big C to pull his team together and for Jullian to keep coaching his magic to get these Bruins back on track on Tuesday for Toronto.