MONTREAL -- One thing that has helped the Bruins during Claude Julien’s tenure as head coach -- and that drove their 2011 Stanley Cup run -- is their resolve. Fortunately for Boston, it was on full display in their 4-3 shootout win over the Canadiens on Wednesday night.

The Bruins played two solid periods of hockey before losing winger Rich Peverley to a knee injury and blowing a 3-1 lead in the third period, but rebounded for a gut-check win in one of the loudest arenas in the league, the Bell Centre.

Then on Thursday morning after finding out that Peverley was sent home for further examination, the Bruins players weren't hanging their heads. Already missing winger Nathan Horton (concussion), the Bruins refused to feel sorry for themselves. (Update: The Bruins announced Friday that Peverley would miss 4-6 weeks)

“I think we’ve been there before many times and we have good depth,” Krejci said. “It’s not a good situation when one of your good players goes down, and now we have ‘Horty’ [Horton] and him. But we gotta battle through it and I’m sure those two guys will be back soon.”

Since Julien took over the Bruins in 2006-07, his teams have had to survive without key players plenty of times. During the 2007-08 season, Patrice Bergeron suffered a major concussion on Oct. 27, 2007, and never returned. Later in the season, Marc Savard missed a chunk of games with a back injury and David Krejci burst on the scene filling in for him and helping the Bruins earn the eighth seed in the Eastern Conference playoffs.

Savard would also miss portions of the 2009-10 and 2010-11 seasons with concussions and hasn’t returned from the one he suffered in January 2011.

But even with those setbacks, the Bruins managed to win their first Stanley Cup in 39 seasons and remain a contender to win another this season.

Julien is banking on that experience with major injuries to help his team battle through this latest string of bad luck.

“It’s gotta help,” Julien said. "I think we’re in a position here where we’re trying to win hockey games, and no matter who is in the lineup, you gotta make it happen. We base ourselves on the foundation of what we’re trying to do as a team and it doesn’t matter who comes in, if we respect that foundation, we feel it’s a strong enough one that can still win hockey games with players out of our lineup.”

Julien has had to shuffle the lineup since Horton's concussion (his second in one calendar year), and had to do so again Wednesday when Peverley went down. More changes will be needed at least for the game at Winnipeg on Friday and most likely longer. Julien confirmed Thursday that recent call-up Josh Hennessey will be in the lineup Friday and probably the rest of this six-game road trip, adding “unless my GM pulls a rabbit out of somewhere” and makes a trade.

But neither he nor his players are using the lineup changes and injury bug as an excuse.

“There’s teams that do that on a daily basis,” Julien pointed out. “They’re able to handle it and just because we don’t do it that often doesn’t mean our guys aren’t able to handle it. That’s part of the evolution of a season where you got injuries and you got players that need to be moved around for different reasons and you go with that. I don’t necessarily see it as an excuse. It will be an adjustment for some but certainly not an excuse.”

As winger Daniel Paille put it Thursday, now it’s time for the Bruins to put their experience overcoming adversity to work and to “step up” once again.

“I think we’ve done pretty well so far,” Paille said. "Obviously with Nathan hurt, it’s affected us a little bit, but at the same time we haven’t had anybody step up and I think it’s time with having a couple guys out, certain guys are going to play a little bit more and all we need to help out.”