Crunch time has come to the Hub.

The pressure is mounting on the Bruins. Individual pride, grudges and stats all become relatively meaningless at a time of year when points are the only currency that counts.

That is what made Monday’s 3-2 loss at the hands of the Sabres (recap) so disappointing for the Bruins.

It was a night when they could have padded their lead for the eighth spot in the Eastern Conference to four points, as Atlanta lost to Carolina.

“We can’t keep hoping for other teams to lose games. We have to control our destiny and win games ourselves so we have our standing under control,” B's defenseman Dennis Seidenberg said. “We didn’t play bad today but there were a couple breakdowns that led to that loss.”

The defensive breakdowns led to two quick goals by Tyler Myers and Paul Gaustad after the Bruins had gone up early with a goal by David Krejci. The Sabres added an insurance goal (which ultimately provided the margin of victory) in the second period courtesy of Tim Kennedy, on a shot that slipped through the pads of Bruins goalie Tim Thomas and eked across the goal line. At that point, Thomas had allowed three goals on 13 shots at that point and was pulled by coach Claude Julien in favor of Tuukka Rask.

The Bruins registered 42 shots against Ryan Miller, the second time in three games that Boston has eclipsed the 40-shot mark. But Miller was stout and the Bruins managed to beat him just twice.

“If we are going to look at pointing the finger there [at Thomas], I think we have to look at missed opportunities,” Julien said. “We could have scored more than two goals and we didn’t do it. The reason we lost 3-2 was some of the quality chances that we couldn’t capitalize on.”

Here is a Hat Trick of lessons from a night of lost opportunities and points.

THE GOALTENDER DILEMMA WON’T GO AWAY

Thomas was excellent in shutting out the Flames on Saturday. With back-to-back games to start the week (the Bruins boarded a plan to New Jersey after the game), Julien knew that he would need both of his goaltenders to chip in, and he had reason to believe that they could do just that, particularly given Thomas’ performance against Calgary.

“No doubt, when you look at Timmy’s last game, he was extremely good,” said Julien. “We expected the same tonight.”

Thomas feel far short of those expectations. In fairness, he was done few favors along the way.

The first two goals deflected off of defenseman Dennis Wideman (more on that in a bit). Kennedy’s game winner was set up by a blown assignment by Seidenberg, who took full responsibility for the lapse.

“I think those two quick goals took it out of us a little bit and it took us a little while to get it back,” Seidenberg said. “A couple breakdowns, the third goal was my mistake.”

That said, the reigning Vezina Trophy winner was ultimately held accountable for the Sabres’ goal-scoring burst. The Bruins felt they could not stick with Thomas. He was pulled at 6:08 in the second, leaving to boos from the TD Garden crowd.

"I didn't hear it,” Thomas said afterwards. “I was so mad. I don't know if they were booing me or booing the fact I was leaving the game.”

Rask encountered no such criticism. He stopped all 19 shots that he faced to give the Bruins a chance to come back.

“I think at some point you have to change the momentum to help your team out,” said Julien. “That is what we decided to do at that time.”

THE HILL KEEPS GETTING STEEPER FOR WIDEMAN

It has been a challenging year for Dennis Wideman. At times, it seems as if he is Sisyphus, given the task of repeatedly rolling a huge ball up a hill only to have it keep falling back to the bottom, leaving him to start his task anew.

Wideman is having a Sisyphean sort of season. No matter how hard he tries, it seems that he is getting no closer to his intended goal.

Tyler Myers’ goal came courtesy of a blast from the point that went underneath Wideman’s arm to knock it off course just enough to beat Thomas. Gaustad’s goal came after Myers had a shot on Thomas that rebounded into the slot where the forward backhanded it back towards the net. It went off Wideman’s skate, thus – in theory – making the Bruins defenseman the leading scorer in the game.

“Well, I noticed it was rolling a little bit and I just decided to basically just whack at it towards the net and luckily it found a hole,” Myers said of his goal.

Wideman was on the ice for the third goal and thus was minus-three for the game, putting him at minus-16 for the season, tied for the worst on the team with Matt Hunwick.

Wideman has admitted to being in his own head a little bit this season, not competing as hard as he can and being plain unlucky. It seems that the harder he works these days, the more things go wrong. On Monday, his continued misfortune cost the Bruins the game.

A MISSED OPPORTUNITY PROVED COSTLY

The complexion of the game could have been a lot different. Early in the first period, Bruins forward Marco Sturm had a break on Craig Rivet after taking a pass from Patrice Bergeron in the neutral zone. With no other options, Rivet hooked Sturm to the ice and those two and Bergeron went crashing into Buffalo’s net.

Sturm was awarded a penalty shot. He tried to go five-hole on Miller but was denied, and the game remained scoreless until Krejci beat Miller four minutes later.

“It was early in the night for a penalty shot. I was just trying to get out and challenge it,” Miller said. “I figure Sturm usually sets up from the other side. He was trying something different on me. I haven’t seen him go five-hole for a while so I was thinking that was a possibility.”

If Sturm had been able to score it could have given the Bruins a 2-0 advantage and made for a whole different set of scenarios. Against Miller, who has been playing at an exceptional level all season, early opportunities cannot be wasted.

A couple notes on the penalty shot. It was the Bruins’ fourth of the year, the most since the 1934-35 season. It was Sturm’s second of the year and he is Boston’s all-time leader in the category with five as Johnny Bucyk and P.J. Axelsson both had three.