Ryan: The Bruins have been in this position before … so why does this deficit feel more daunting than ever?

For a hockey player, finding yourself on the wrong side of an 0-2 hole in a playoff series is a bit like all of us miring away at the RMV for the entire afternoon.

Everyone goes through it at some point — but it doesn’t make it suck any less. 

So perhaps that familiarity in the midst of adversity is what prompted Patrice Bergeron to not sound the alarms amid the incessant swell that his club has been trapped in this week.

Despite what the optics presented in the immediate aftermath of a Game 2 loss where the Bruins were bruised, battered and soundly beaten by a Hurricanes club that has now outscored them, 26-4, this season, Bergeron wasn’t focused on looking in the rearview.

“One game at a time," the B's captain noted. "That's all we can focus on now is Game 3. It's playoff hockey. You're gonna have some adversity. For us, it's early. So back to Game 3.”

Bergeron can certainly speak from experience. 

Boston’s current predicament in its first-round bout with Carolina stands as its first two-game hole in a best-of-seven series since 2011 — when the B’s dropped the first two contests in their tilts against the Canadiens and eventually the Canucks in the Cup Final.

Even though those early defeats more than a decade ago weren’t perhaps as lopsided as the beatdowns that Carolina is routinely dishing out in 2022, that Habs series in particular was wrapped in ill tidings in record time — an expected consequence when you drop two HOME games to your most-hated rival.

So if the Bruins can bounce back from setbacks such as those ... surely they can follow a similar script against this Carolina team, right?

Bergeron and everyone else on Boston's roster seem to agree with such sentiment.

But for all of the resolve present in Boston's room, it’s only natural for our optimism to wane — especially when looking at what’s actually played out on the ice since Monday night.

The Bruins are already in an unfavorable spot against the Metro Division champions, but the road is only going to get much harder from here as far as personnel is concerned.  

Even though the Bruins were knocked to the mat against the Habs and Canucks, they still managed to have their full complement of skaters intact when they finally started to punch back in those Game 3 (Nathan Horton’s injury certainly galvanized the 2011 B’s, but the top-six winger was at least cleared to play at puck drop). 

The Bruins don’t have such a luxury going into Friday’s Game 3 rematch at TD Garden. At least it sure doesn’t look like it after Hampus Lindholm was felled by a bone-crunching hit from Andrei Svechnikov in the second period of Wednesday's loss.

Lindholm’s status on the shelf was all but confirmed as soon as the 6-foot-4 blueliner needed help getting off the ice, but Bruce Cassidy’s postgame comments didn’t offer much hope for a return any time soon. 

"He’s not doing well,” Cassidy said of Lindholm.

With Lindholm out of commission, a Bruins D corps that was already picked apart and bullied by Carolina’s furious forecheck all season long is now going to be up against it in Game 3, especially with Mike Reilly standing as the likely next man up. And with Frederik Andersen (he of a .990 save percentage against Boston this season) inching closer and closer to a return, things could go from bad to worse for the B's. 

Losing Lindholm for any stretch of time is already a devastating blow for a Bruins team that desperately needs his top-four stability and transition prowess. But perhaps the most disheartening gut punch when it comes to Boston’s present situation lies in the fact that even a healthy B’s roster has been absolutely pantsed by Carolina throughout this series — in just about every facet of the game. 

Once again, Boston started out strong against the Canes on Wednesday night, holding an early 8-2 edge in shots on goal through the first few minutes of action. And by the end of the period, Boston had a goose egg to show for said efforts, while two of Carolina’s 11 shots found twine. 

We could fall down the rabbit hole when it comes to the refs' propensity for sending players to the sin bin, or Boston’s own dreadful discipline, but those are factors that can (and hopefully should) be corrected over the span of a series.

What is a lot less certain is if Boston will finally start solving the conundrum that Carolina throws at them down both ends of the ice — be it Boston’s woes when it comes to cashing in on scoring chances or Carolina taking advantage of the B’s zone defense and letting pucks fly from the point.

Boston doesn’t claw back into this series until results improve in both areas. And against a team like Carolina, that’s a lot to ask. 

“I think the balanced scoring has been good to us ... but we got to get something going here,” Cassidy said after Boston was forced to reunite the Marchand-Bergeron-Pastrnak line Wednesday in search of a spark. “Moving one player off the line, I don't think we'll solve all that. 

“We need to get some other lines closer to the net and finish some plays. Bigger bodies, getting to the net, second chances. Because their goaltenders are doing a good job of stopping the first one. Some of those guys are going to have to find their offensive game here to get a timely goal for us as we talked to earlier. If we're not getting the timely saves, then we need more timely goals and we probably need a little bit of both.” 

Is it time to start penning the 2021-22 Bruins obituary? Not quite yet. (Although the Google Doc has been drafted). 

Of course, in a game like hockey, things tend to change in a hurry.

Perhaps Boston’s return to TD Garden and that familiar chorus of cheers on Causeway Street gives the B’s the spark they need. Maybe the loss of Lindholm serves as another rallying cry for a team that has to embrace more of a sandpaper style against this Canes team on Friday and beyond. And maybe a mid-series switch in net gives Boston more of a lift, especially if Jeremy Swayman can fall back into one of his trademark heaters.

Bergeron and his teammates are holding onto such hope ahead of Friday's showdown.

Whether or not the fans — who have seen the product on the ice these past four days — follow suit remains to be seen. 

“There's a lot of pockets in the game where we have some really good pressure and good shifts and good chances. I thought the same thing with Game 1,” Bergeron said. “With that being said, you want results, obviously, at this time of the year. You want to build from some of the good things we've done. We want to learn from the things and improve some of the things that we know we can be better at as a group and as a team and be ready for Game 3."