Everyone expects that the Bruins will face some challenges in their own end after the losses of Zdeno Chara and Torey Krug and the insertion of two youngsters into their six-pack of defensemen.

But what's happening at the other end of the ice is even more concerning right now.

The B's are now six periods into the new season and they have yet to score a five-on-five goal. Saturday, it cost them the extra point.

Yegor Sharangovic was sprung by Damon Severson for a clean break-in and, with 1.7 seconds left on the clock, he beat Jaroslav Halak with a snap shot to lift the New Jersey Devils to a 2-1 overtime victory.

The Bruins took three out of a possible four points from the Devils in the two-game series to open the season, but Jersey gave the B's all they could handle in the two games. Considering the Devils are thought to be one of the few weak teams in the deadly East Division, that is not a good sign.

And unlike their season-opening shootout victory, the Bruins did not force goalie Mackenzie Blackwood to be all that exceptional to nail down the victory.

Getting David Pastrnak back will eventually help with the offense. But he's at least a couple of weeks away and — in this compact 56-game schedule and highly competitive division — the B's can't afford to fritter away too many points like they did on Saturday. When you give up just one goal and get a strong goaltending performance like they did from Halak (29 saves), you really should come away with two points. They did not.

"We're not doing the things necessary to score goals right now," said coach Bruce Cassidy.

It didn't help that the Bruins lost Ondrej Kase (upper body) early in the second period, causing Cassidy to put his lines in the blender. But even with Kase, the B's had a somnambulant start and struggled much of the day to have any kind of sustained attack on Blackwood.

"We're not shooting enough. We're not playing off the original shot and that to me is just not playing hockey," said Cassidy. "Sometimes you shoot to force the team to recover, sometimes you shoot to force the goalie to control his rebound, you're shooting for a second chance, it might draw a penalty. There's a lot of things that can happen off a shot. That's where (Brad Marchand and Patrice Bergeron's) line is at their best. You tee it up and they help to recover it.

"And we're not doing enough of that right now. We're looking to make a pass and it showed up tonight. Our forward shot totals, I haven't looked at them yet, but they can't be very encouraging. So we'll address it and they're going to have to buy into that."

Boston's forwards accounted for 16 of the team's 28 shots on net, seven of which were off Bergeron's stick. The Devils were credited with seven blocks, but it felt like a lot more than that as the defensemen had a tough time getting the puck through.

The B's found themselves down 1-0 off a Miles Wood deflection in the first period, when the visitors were losing the majority of the puck races and battles.

"Early on, we were not fast enough and we weren't closing hard enough to get that sustained pressure in their zone. Then they were able to break out, you're back-checking and expending energy. I thought after that we were better, we were competing and strong on the puck," said Bergeron.

Thanks to some energetic shifts from Craig Smith in his Bruins debut, the B's were able to make something happen in the second and it appeared the former Predator had a hand in the B's scoring when Matt Grzelcyk's shot wound up in the back of the net with Smith doing the greasy work in front. It was a bit too greasy, thought the officials, and they waved it off for incidental contact with Blackwood.

Cassidy challenged that Smith was forced in, but the refs did not see enough of it to turn over the call and the B's were down a man. No worries. On the kill, Marchand, at the end of his shift, fought through a Kyle Palmieri check and fed Bergeron for a shorthanded snipe to knot it.

It stayed that way through regulation and, though the B's were able to kill off a Grzelcyk hooking penalty taken with 1:24 left in regulation, they couldn't get it to the shootout again. With the seconds ticking off the clock in OT, Charlie Coyle went to pin Severson up against the boards to kill the clock, but Severson made a nice backhand feed to a wide-open Sharangovic for the clean breakaway and goal.

Maybe Coyle should have played it a little safer in the middle of the ice, maybe not. But there wasn't much of a feeling that the Bruins deserved anything better than they got.