WILMINGTON, Mass. -- The latest NHL Power Rankings posted on ESPN.com don’t bode well for the Boston Bruins.

Over their next four games, the Bruins face the top three teams in the rankings -- the Montreal Canadiens, Pittsburgh Penguins and St. Louis Blues. The Bruins have struggled with inconsistency all season, and injuries to key players haven’t helped. It’s even to a point where Bruins coach Claude Julien almost refuses to discuss the performance of individual players because it’s more important for him to “get the team going in the right direction.”

His reasoning is simple: “Our team as a whole has not been good.”

The Bruins have shown glimpses of success, but they haven’t played a string of highly talented opponents like they’re about to face this week.

It starts with the Blues Tuesday night at TD Garden. St. Louis is one of the best teams in the NHL, winning 10 of its last 11 games. Overall, the Blues are 12-4-1 and lead the Central Division with 25 points. They’re first in the league with a 1.90 goals-against and rank 11th with 2.8 goals per game. The St. Louis power play is second with a 26.2 percent success rate.

The Blues are deep and can roll four strong lines. St. Louis can produce a complete game, something that Boston has struggled with all season. The Blues are a serious Stanley Cup contender. They’re fast, physical and committed, which has been a formula for success.

This is the type of game that the Bruins should consider a benchmark for finding out how good they can be.

“A big test,” Julien said. “They’re 9-1-1 in their last 11 games, so they’ve been playing well. They lost three or four in a row at one point, and they’ve been on a pretty good roll since. They’ve got a pretty good team. They’re deep. They’re skilled. They’re big. They play well and they’ve got some players scoring some pretty big goals for them, and guys that are having good years. It’s going to be a good test for us.”

St. Louis’ line of Jaden Schwartz, Jori Lehtera and Vladimir Tarasenko is locked in offensively. Lehtera has seven goals this season and is riding a seven-game point streak, with five goals and six assists for 11 points in that stretch. Schwartz has two goals and eight assists in his past six games. Tarasenko has seven points in the past five games.

“They’re a heavy team. They come at you with speed. They’re fast and have a lot of skill,” Bruins defenseman Torey Krug said. “They’re obviously playing very well right now and that’s what we expect when they come into our building [Tuesday] is they’re going to play a good hockey game and we’ve got to match that.”

The Bruins had two opportunities last week, but were embarrassed, losing a pair of games to the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Canadiens. Boston responded with a 2-1 win over the Carolina Hurricanes Saturday at TD Garden, but the Bruins need to avoid an ugly relapse against St. Louis, Montreal and Pittsburgh within the next week.

“It’s a good opportunity to raise our level of play, and to show up and do what we’ve been expected to do this whole season. It’s a great opportunity for us,” Krug said.

As the Bruins try to find their game, the benchmark theme will continue. Where the Bruins stand a week from now should be a strong indication of the type of team they will be for the remainder of the season. And, after this stretch of games, it doesn’t get any easier as the Bruins head out to the west coast to face Anaheim, Los Angeles and San Jose.

It starts with the Blues Tuesday night.

“They’ve been playing real well lately, and they have a real good team, so it’s definitely going to be a good challenge,” Bruins forward Loui Eriksson said. “It’s going to be a tough game and a good challenge to see where we’re at and how we can play against a really good team.”