The Bruins “won’t panic” after the unusually slow start to the season.

BOSTON – The Boston Bruins started last season with six straight wins and posted an 11-1-1 record in their first 13 games.

The Bruins had started the season before with 10 wins in their first 11 games and 17 in their first 19 games.

The fact that Boston is 3-4-1 after a 5-2 home loss to the Dallas Stars on Thursday and is tied with the Buffalo Sabers for sixth place in the Atlantic Division with seven points is good news for players who get off to quick starts are used to, unsettling and unpleasant and a guaranteed spot in the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

“We don’t like these results. We recognize that,” Bruins defenseman Charlie McAvoy said.

It’s not about who they are and what they were.

“After the last couple of years where we’ve usually just been gangbusters, having this happen at the start of the year is a bit of new territory for us,” McAvoy said. “I think part of our attitude is that being the best team in October didn’t do us any good.

“We’re doing well. We’re not panicking. It’s game eight. Hopefully we have a lot of games left and we keep getting better.”

While it’s still too early to worry about a postseason berth, which is still far more likely than not, Boston has many, many aspects of its game that need to be corrected, especially before visiting rival Toronto Maple Leafs at TD Garden on Saturday (7 p.m. ET; NHLN, NESN, SNP, SNO, CBC).

“It’s our own doing, which I think is a good thing because we can fix it,” said captain Brad Marchand. “We have to play the right way again for 60 minutes, always do the right things and understand that success is hard and we have to play a hard game to win.” That’s how we always won. We just have to get back to that.”

Marchand pointed out that there has been significant turnover over the last two seasons, that key players have missed parts of training camp – including center Elias Lindholm, goalie Jeremy Swayman and himself – and that it is still early.

And yet it’s clear that no one at the Bruins finds what happened acceptable.

“Many of the mistakes we make and the reasons we feel like we are losing are due to our lack of respect for the game and lack of continuity in the details,” Marchand said. “These are things that can be repaired. If you have a lack of effort and the guys just don’t care, that’s a whole different problem and we don’t have that.”

However, it’s easy to point out the problems Boston had: too many penalties, too many turnovers. It’s a scenario that has repeated itself in the first eight games of the season.

On Thursday, the Bruins received three penalties in the second period against the Stars. Every power play resulted in a goal for Dallas, a team that had scored twice in seven games this season. In total, Boston conceded five penalties in the game, including two from Marchand and two from forward David Pastrnak.

There were moments when the Bruins looked good, brief glimpses of what they believe they can be and are.

But they were too late. They were too short.

“Our mindset has to go in a better, healthier direction, trying to control what you can control,” coach Jim Montgomery said. “What you’re trying to do is outdo your role. Our settings are not at the moment. You depend on results.

“And when you’re results-oriented, you tend to take too many penalties because you get frustrated easily, and you tend to turn the puck over a lot because you don’t want to work for the offense. You want immediate results. And that attitude of not being willing to work for what we want to achieve and our team play is causing some problems at the moment.”

Boston leads the NHL in penalties taken, with 44 minor penalties and four major penalties, for a total of 48 penalties. The next closest team is the San Jose Sharks with a total of 42 penalties. That means, as McAvoy said, the Bruins are “putting way too much strain on our penalty kill.”

Combine that with an offense that doesn’t exactly produce success, and it leads to losses.

Montgomery pointed to Boston’s recent road trip through Colorado, Utah and Nashville. The Bruins defeated the Avalanche 5-3, but followed that with a lackluster 2-1 overtime loss to Utah and a 4-0 loss to the Predators, Nashville’s first win of the season.

“If you don’t focus on habits and details, you’re going to get frustrated,” Montgomery said, “and there’s not a lot of margin for error in this league and we’re on the wrong side of it right now.” I think our attitude is what’s causing that .”

They’ll go back to the drawing board at practice on Friday and hope to put in a better performance against the Maple Leafs in a game they’re sure to have coming up. They’ll be hoping they can sort out the problems – and soon.

Because the Bruins don’t feel like they’re far away. There are looks. There are moments. There is the team they know they can be.

“It’s a tough league,” Marchand said. “She’ll humble you pretty quickly.” If a team thinks they’ll just get ahead, they need to think again. It’s a great opportunity for us to take advantage of this, get better and enjoy this process of working and simplifying.

“We’ll be fine.”