BOSTON -- The Bruins simply need to take care of business against the Florida Panthers. Truly good teams will beat bad teams every single time, and the Bruins handily took care of the scuffling Panthers on the road in Florida last month with a surgical 4-1 win that featured Zdeno Chara’s 360-degree spinning highlight reel goal.

It was essentially men against boys in that game, and it should be more of the same against the Panthers again on Thursday night. There shouldn’t be any third-period breakdowns against a team that’s lost four games in a row, and has won only a pair of games in their last 10. There shouldn’t be any disappearing acts for Milan Lucic or Nathan Horton.

There certainly shouldn’t be any big defensive breakdowns against a team that’s down both Stephen Weiss and Kris Versteeg for the rest of the season.  

“When you start overlooking teams it can bite you. They’ve gotten a lot younger because of some of the injuries to their lineup, so they should play with plenty of energy,” said Daniel Paille. “Anybody can beat anybody in this league on any particular given day, and that’s how you have to approach it.”

Nothing is easy at this point in the season with the Bruins amidst a stretch of 17 games in 31 days where fatigue and injuries will begin to mount, but Boston needs to start finding their way a little bit. Now they’ll have to do it without Chris Kelly and Adam McQuaid, but that shouldn’t be nearly enough to derail a Bruins team that proved to be elite in the first half of the season.
 
PLAYER NEEDING HIS TIRED PUMPED: Milan Lucic was shut out of any shots on net in Tuesday’s loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins and has just one goal in his last 13 games as the entire line has struggled. Over the season, Lucic only has 33 shots on net in 23 games and that’s not nearly enough offensive chances generated by a player that’s averaged just under 30 goals per season over the last two years.
 
DRESSING ROOM MANTRA HEADED INTO THE GAME: “Every team has guys on them that can score. You can’t take them lightly because when you do it will end up in the back of your net. You’ve got to just play every team as hard as you can.” – Johnny Boychuk, unloading some good hockey player-speak about the Florida Panthers before a game the Bruins should win handily.  
 
KEY MATCHUP: Just as the Bruins top two lines did damage against the Panthers in Florida, they need to get the job done against a beleaguered Florida franchise forced to start a struggling Scott Clemmensen between the pipes. The Panthers are last in the NHL while averaging 3.7 goals per game and last in the league in penalty kill percentage, so the Bruins should fatten up their offensive numbers. This could be a slump buster-type game for a Bruins top line of Milan Lucic-Nathan Horton-David Krejci that’s struggled over the last month.  
 
STAT TO WATCH: 0.98 – The goals against average for Tuukka Rask in six games against the Florida Panthers over the course of his career.  
 
INJURIES: The Panthers' injury list is impressively lengthy and includes defenseman Michael Caruso (wrist), Ed Jovanovski (knee), Mike Weaver (lower body) and Dmitry Kulikov (wrist), forwards Scottie Upshall (lower body), Stephen Weiss (wrist) and Sean Bergenheim (undisclosed), and goalie Jose Theodore (groin). The latest is Kris Versteeg, who appears to be out of the lineup after suffering a lower body issue against the Tampa Bay Lightning on Tuesday night. Bruins forward Chris Kelly is out indefinitely with a broken left tibia and Adam McQuaid is out (upper body) with an injury sustained Tuesday night against the Penguins.
 
GOALTENDING MATCH-UP: It will be Rask for the Bruins coming off a winning effort in the shootout against the Ottawa Senators on Monday night where he made a show-stopping pad save on Kaspars Daugavins’ circus shot during the shootout. Rask is 5-1 with a .098 goals against average and .969 save percentage in six lifetime appearances against the Panthers, and he has a pair of shutouts in those handful of games against Florida’s moribund franchise. George Richards reported that it will be Scott Clemmensen in net for the Panthers, and the former Boston College netminder has a 2-3-2 record with an .852 save percentage and 4.28 goals against average. Ouch. Advantage Bruins.