Penguins vs. Bruins: Will Evgeni Malkin Challenge Wake Up Boston vs. Pittsburgh?

Discounting empty-netters, the Boston Bruins have allowed three goals or more in regulation on four consecutive occasions and in six of their last nine outings. They have been outscored 31-25 over those last nine games, amounting to a nightly median of 2.78 goals for and 3.44 in their own cage.

Offensively, the Bruins have performed as well over the last three weeks as the Tampa Bay Lightning and San Jose Sharks have for the full scope of the season up to this point. Defensively, they have been a cut below the league-worst Lightning, who have authorized 3.34 goals per night over their first 50 outings.

Knowing that, with the exception of a few slumping scorers, head coach Claude Julien might as well single out the blue-line brigade when he says that, “Right now, we’re playing more like a team that should be at the bottom of the standings.”

Julien added in the same Friday address to the Bruins’ website:

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“It’s more of an attitude thing right now, about getting some urgency in our game, and we’ve got the guys in the dressing room to make that happen. So we need to push, as a coaching staff and as players as well, and start to see a little bit more urgency.”

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Not unlike the team as a whole, Boston’s defense has been its faultiest when confronting teams that fall short of a fellow heavyweight. The urgency Julien speaks of may need to be manufactured in that situation, but the presence of a more formidable adversary might just hand-deliver a fresh batch of incentive all on its own.

Enter the Pittsburgh Penguins, in town for a Saturday matinee at TD Garden, and NHL point-leader Evgeni Malkin.

With the Penguins, the Bruins will face the seventh-highest scoring offense in the league to date. More to the point, they will take on a team that is subsisting rather heavily on the output of one individual and his linemates.

Malkin, Chris Kunitz and James Neal are Pittsburgh’s top three point-getters on the year. With Sidney Crosby and Jordan Staal both sidelined, along with Aaron Asham and Simon Despres, the top troika is responsible for 68 of the Penguins’ 129 rostered goals.

That translates to 52.7 percent of the scoring from merely three unified members of the active lineup.

When Malkin does not dress or otherwise does not contribute, the Penguins are 8-9-1. With their 3-1 victory in a Dec. 5 meeting, the Bruins are one of 11 teams to have already kept Malkin off the scoresheet and roll up a collective 7-2-2 record against Pittsburgh.

When Malkin does make a tangible impact, the Penguins are a glossy 21-9-3. In three of those regulation losses, he supplied the lone goal while his mates went numb and Detroit, New Jersey or Ottawa piled on four or five strikes at the other end.

Boston has a strong enough fortress and abundant firepower to pull off something similar. Both will be needed to plug in the key to Saturday’s matchup, namely stifling Malkin and his wingers to the point where Pittsburgh is callously reminded of the continued absence of Crosby and Staal.

The Bruins have not found themselves safeguarding a 2-0 lead since their 2-1 triumph over Montreal Jan. 12. That alone adds another layer of incongruity to the ongoing lapse in urgency on the home front.

But maybe the knowledge of facing the NHL’s top individual producer is the cure. After all, before anyone gets around to penetrating Penguins stopper Marc-Andre Fleury, presumptive Malkin cover agents Zdeno Chara and Johnny Boychuk will want to make amends for the icebreaker in their last game.

In Thursday night’s first period, Chara gave Carolina’s Eric Staal too much time and space while monitoring puck-carrier Jiri Tlusty. The result was a life-pumping 1-0 edge for the visitors, which later morphed into a 2-0 difference and spawned a belated and dangerously excessive spike in urgency.

Saturday’s shutdown operation will have to be more attentive and assertive, smoothly pouring out the urgency from the opening draw rather than letting it build up bottled carbonation through the first two periods.

A little assistance from the offense would not hurt, either. A Boston lead, in conjunction with fettering Pittsburgh’s top line, could outright inflict the uncomfortable breed of urgency on the Penguins.

But whether the score is 0-0, 1-0, 1-1, 2-0 or 2-1, less Malkin will mean more momentum for the Bruins as this game unfolds. An actively expressed appreciation for that notion could be Boston’s solution to restoring normalcy.