It’s something that has become nearly routine for the Bruins this season, and in recent years. They are once again last in the NHL in power-play chances, far behind the 29th-place team. The Bruins have had 122 chances this season. New Jersey, in second-to-last place, has had 147 entering Monday. Tampa Bay, in first place, has gone on the man advantage 196 times.

The Bruins, meanwhile, had three penalties called, all of which they killed off.

The number stood out once again. On Sunday night, Montreal did not receive a single penalty, and so the Bruins did not have a single power play.


Sunday’s game marked the third time this season that the Bruins received no power-play opportunities; it also happened Nov. 4 against Florida and Dec. 2 at Montreal. It was the 28th time the Bruins had gotten two or fewer power plays in a game.

And it’s something that’s clearly frustrating them.

Asked about his team’s penalty kill after Sunday’s game, coach Claude Julien said, “That’s all we can talk about, right, is our PK, not our PP? They did a good job. Our PK did a good job.”

When the issue of not having any power-play chances was followed up on, Julien said, “It’s always nice to have a PP sometimes. Gives you momentum.”

That was not something from which the Bruins benefited Sunday night. And though the power play isn’t doing nearly the same job it did last season — when the Bruins ranked third in the NHL with a 21.7 success rate — the units are passable this season. Boston stands 18th in the league at 18 percent.

Of course, not getting chances to go on the power play doesn’t exactly help the team stay ready when they do come.

Asked if his team was deserving of power plays on Sunday, Brad Marchand said, “Yeah, definitely. We definitely should have had a couple, and I don’t think it should have been 3-0.”


That was more than Torey Krug would say.

“I’m not going to talk about that,” he said.

Precarious position

The Bruins did not play particularly well in their last three games, starting with Wednesday’s game against the Rangers, continuing through Saturday against the Islanders and Sunday against the Canadiens. They managed to pull out a win over the Islanders, but fell to the other two opponents.

That’s not a good sign for a team that still needs to gain as many points as possible to ensure a spot in the playoffs.

“We’re sitting in eighth place right now, and even if we were winning, I think we would still have that sense of urgency and the mental preparation to make sure that we’re ready to win the next game whoever it is against,” Krug said.

“So, yeah, we haven’t been playing well the last three games, so we’re going to take a look at our game and try and fix those mistakes and approach it, even if we were playing well, approach it the same way.”

The Bruins are currently in line for the second wild card with 63 points. Florida is 6 points behind, but has two games in hand.

The Bruins are set to play Dallas on Tuesday, and follow that with a difficult trip through the Western Conference, with games in Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, St. Louis, and Chicago.


“You tackle that problem head on,” Krug said, of not coming out with enough urgency. “Like I said, we’re sitting in eighth place and that’s not a comfortable position to be in.

“So we have to make sure that we take that problem, we face it and we take care of it because if you don’t take care of that, then you’re going to fall behind in a lot of hockey games.”

Svedberg back up

The Bruins announced Monday that they had recalled goalie Niklas Svedberg to Boston. Svedberg spent the last two weekends in Providence on a conditioning assignment. The backup goaltender had played just once since Dec. 27 in Boston. In four games in the AHL, Svedberg gave up 11 goals for a 2.76 goals-against average and a .911 save percentage. Malcolm Subban was sent back to Providence . . . The season sweep of Boston by the Canadiens marked the first time that has happened since 2007-08. All four wins this year by the Canadiens were in regulation, the first time Montreal has swept a season series with all regulation wins since 1944-45, according to Sportsnet.

Amalie Benjamin can be reached at abenjamin @globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @amaliebenjamin.