BOSTON (CBS) – Will these guys ever grow up?

Or will the Bruins, as currently constituted, always be destined to lose, and lose without dignity?

The Bruins’ loss to Montreal on Thursday brought up those questions not because of the defensive breakdowns that led to the 6-4 defeat, but because of the babyish antics of a couple of core players who never seem to change their stripes.

Bruins forward Milan Lucic has again made the Bruins a two-country laughingstock with his actions.

With the Bruins down one goal with less than two minutes to play, Lucic kicked his team off the comeback trail by earning a borderline boarding penalty on Montreal defenseman Alexei Emelin. It wasn’t enough for Lucic that he just made his team shorthanded, he then made gestures (some lewd, some PG) to the crowd around the penalty box. And then he earned an early shower when he came out of the box because he verbally abused the officials.

On Friday, he was hit with a $5,000 fine from the NHL.

It seems that in recent seasons, as often as Lucic scores a big goal or crushes a puck carrier on the forecheck (he has just two points in six games this season, both assists in Thursday night’s loss), he also makes the Bruins targets of controversy at the worst times. Twice in the playoffs last year he conducted “cup checks” on opponents with his stick. Or at least he was caught on video twice.

Then there were the famous handshake threats, which were ridiculous when you consider that once you’ve publicly promised to hurt someone in the NHL, you can’t do anything to that threatened player unless you’re willing to face a major suspension and fines. A mature leader with Stanley Cup aspirations would’ve shook hands, kept his thoughts to himself and then unleashed his fury when the puck dropped the next time he faced off with the guy. Lucic compounded his nonsense by blaming Montreal forward Dale Weise for ratting, but again, everything was caught by the cameras.

Lucic refused to repent for the handshake line incident. That was his prerogative, but based on the shame he brought to the Bruins’ brand one has to hope Lucic at least showed some regret toward team president Cam Neely. Even while standing up for Lucic last June, Neely noted, “the drive and determination, yeah, you can harness that a little differently than what we showed, there’s no question.”

The Bruins’ team-first mentality has always gone beyond the dressing room. The president defends the players. The coach always has his players’ backs. If it’s any consolation, Lucic isn’t alone in the Bruins’ sandbox of stupidity. Fellow left winger Brad Marchand took two stupid penalties away from the puck in Montreal on Thursday. And it was Marchand, of course, that last season popularized some of the gestures Lucic used in Montreal. Last December, Marchand grabbed the headlines by pretending to kiss his invisible Stanley Cup rings and hoist an invisible Stanley Cup to taunt the Vancouver Canucks. That display’s embarrassing blow to the Bruins was only dulled when video of Lucic’s verbal altercation with a bar patron after the game emerged.

In reference to the Marchand incident, Julien had this to say after the Bruins returned from Western Canada last year: “Anyways, you deal with those things internally, like I said, within your organization, and our team likes to take pride in being a classy one. Sometimes there’s certain things that happen that tarnish it a little bit, but then we just reel guys back in and make sure that we’re all about what we expect from this organization.”

There’s just doesn’t seem to be enough line to reel all these guys in, especially when they don’t ever seem to grow up. Words haven’t done the trick and there really aren’t any actions that can be taken because. Julien, the Bruins’ management and the Bruins’ players can repeat the word “classy” over and over all they want. It won’t make the Bruins synonymous with the term without a major change in mindset.

The Bruins got away with some silliness during their march to the Cup championship in 2011. There were some ill-conceived postgame scrums, Nathan Horton gave fans in Tampa a little water squirt, several Bruins decided to taunt the Canucks with their fingers after Vancouver forward Alex Burrows revealed his cannibalistic side earlier in the series. But the 2011 team was talented enough to overcome its immaturity. That team also got some fortunate bounces and was rarely penalized for its silly antics.

You can’t expect everything to go right the way they did that magical season, especially in the extreme heat of the spotlight that has been directed toward the Bruins since 2011. When players like Lucic and Marchand make fools of themselves, regardless of the time of year, they make it so much harder on the Bruins to achieve their goals.

Lucic is scheduled to hear from the league about a potential fine for his indecent gestures. If the Bruins are wise, Lucic will also hear from the coaches and the team president. His agent would be wise to get in Lucic’s ear. Lucic has one more year left after this season on his current contract. If he wants to keep being a $6 million per year player, he might want to stop making headlines for the wrong reasons, especially with his slide in production.

Going forward, Marchand has two years left on his contract. With the NHL salary cap being what it is and no-trade clauses dotting seemingly everyone’s paperwork, Lucic and Marchand are going to be Bruins for the immediate future. That means we’ll probably be subjected to this sort of nonsense a few more times before the Bruins can even consider replacing their oversized infants with grown men.

It’s a shame that after all these years sometimes Julien still has to fill the Mary Poppins role on an NHL team. But he has to crack the whip here and get these guys in line before the Bruins’ failures wind up costing the coach his job.

At this point, despite all the rhetoric, the moral high ground is a fantasy place for the Bruins. The Stanley Cup might be just as unrealistic if the Bruins continue relying on players that put their immature agendas ahead of team goals.

Matt Kalman covers the Bruins for CBSBoston.com and also contributes to NHL.com and several other media outlets. Follow him on Twitter @TheBruinsBlog.

MORE BRUINS COVERAGE FROM CBS BOSTON

[display-posts category=”bruins” wrapper=”ul” posts_per_page=”4?”]