With 81 games to go in the Bruins’ season, let’s not get too silly. There are no must-wins in October.

But the B’s are need of some good vibes in their home opener on Thursday against the Montreal Canadiens.

Such was the feeling after the B’s got blown out by the Florida Panthers in their season opener in Sunrise, Fla., on Tuesday. Don’t be fooled by the 6-4 final score. This game was over in the first period, when the B’s were seeing red and the Panthers simply stepped aside from the onrushing Black and Gold bull before slaying it.

It had to be maddening but, at this point, it cannot be unexpected that the Stanley Cup champions would answer for anything that went down last spring or even in the Tuesday’s game.

What was more troublesome than the unrequited hate was how the B’s were unprepared to play the hard, disciplined hockey that had become a hallmark of the B’s-Panthers games of the last couple of games.

“We didn’t play well,” said Nikita Zadorov. “Obviously, they came in hot in their building. I don’t think we made a play in the first period with the puck, we lost every battle along the walls, in our zone, net-front, everything. So that was the result of the first period.”

The B’s can only hope that it was just the emotion that turned their game sideways. The Panthers were allowed to get up a head of speed through the neutral zone all night and come at Joonas Korpisalo in waves. The first goal against was off a bad rebound from Korpisalo, but by that point the Finn had already turned away a number of high danger chances.

“We could have reloaded better. We could have had an F3 on the strong side better and our defensemen could have read the rush better,” said coach Jim Montgomery.

Whether the current defense pairs will work or not remains to be seen. Mason Lohrei (minus-3) and Brandon Carlo (minus-2) had a rough night together. Zadorov had started training camp with Charlie McAvoy, Hampus Lindholm was with Carlo and Lohrei with Andrew Peeke. We’ve yet to see Zadorov with Carlo. We’ll see if Montgomery believes that’s worth a try.

And they did not get a whole heck of a lot from the forwards, for that matter. The first line of Pavel Zacha-Elias Lindholm-David Pastrnak had just a couple of decent shifts but none of the other lines really showed much of an identity, especially the bottom six that was supposed to be able pin opponents’ ears back with a relentless forecheck. That never materialized.

“It’s the first game, a lot of new faces, emotions, obviously there’s history in the past against that team. The focus level wasn’t there a little bit today but it’s a game one in 82 games. We’re going to get used to each other,” said Zadorov.

“Maybe it was a little too much emotion and a little less focus on hockey. But, like I said, there’s no panic in the room. We didn’t give up in the third period. We kept pushing and got two back and had a chance in the end. But it’s a long season. We’ll be fine.”

That’s a fair point. Then again, the Cup champions had plenty of turnover, too, and it didn’t seem to slow them down.

Now it’s on to the Habs. While Montreal may be expected to bring up the rear of the highly competitive Atlantic Division, it’s October. Teams have yet to assume and accept their identities. The Habs could be one of those teams that is going to be a tough out every night, though they’ll be playing on the second half of a back-to-back after opening their season against Toronto on Wednesday.

We’ll soon find out what the Has have to offer this season. But the B’s need to focus on themselves, something they clearly did not do on Tuesday.

Loose pucks

The one area where you could give the B’s an unqualified thumbs-up was on the penalty kill. They killed all six of the Florida power plays, scored a shorthanded goal and very nearly had another on a Brad Marchand-Charlie Coyle 2-on-1. Hampus Lindholm led all players in PK ice time at 7:51 and Johnny Beecher led the forwards with 5:39.

Montgomery said he’d look to cut the 36-year-old Marchand’s time on the PK this season and that held true to form. The captain played 1:42 on the PK. … One of the most interesting awards race this year will be the Calder Trophy for rookie of the year. The B’s will be seeing one of the candidates on Thursday with former Boston University Terrier defenseman Lane Hutson coming to town.