Jim Montgomery could only shrug his shoulders on Thursday after yet another lopsided loss for the Bruins.

Jim Montgomery could only shrug his shoulders on Thursday after yet another lopsided loss for the Bruins.

“It’s been frustrating all year that we haven’t been able to string like, three to four consistent games where we feel like our habits and details are consistently there,” Montgomery acknowledged after Boston left the ice in Dallas after a 7-2 defeat.

Much like his team’s repeated flaws amid an underwhelming 8-8-2 start, Montgomery’s postgame musings have repeated themselves into the same predictable script: Short on answers, and plenty of bewilderment over how a seemingly stout Bruins roster could erode across so many areas in record time.

At this point, Montgomery has already scrolled through his list of tried-and-true coaching maneuvers in hopes of giving his team a spark.

Boston’s lines have been put in a blender countless times over. He chewed out captain Brad Marchand on the bench in October before later benching David Pastrnak for the third period of a game against Seattle just a few weeks later.

The results have done little to change the fortunes of a Bruins team that has still yet to win three games in a row — routinely following up any sort of “get right” result with a one-sided loss or extended slide.

Montgomery is in an unenviable spot less than two months into a new season — seemingly unable to right the ship for a win-now roster and further hindered by the lack of clarity regarding his future with Boston.

Even though Montgomery has said all the right things about coaching in the final year of his contract in 2024-25, putting a team’s head coach through a “lame duck” campaign doesn’t exactly signal heaps of confidence from Boston’s top brass.