It was bound to end sometime.  

The Bruins’ seven-game win-streak was the talk of the town while it lasted, but all it took was a regrettable Dennis Seidenberg pass to wipe it away Saturday night in overtime.  

Yet if you were looking for a eulogy for the streak, one wasn’t to be offered in the Bruins’ dressing room or Claude Julien’s podium on the heels of their 3-2 overtime loss to the Penguins (recap). The way they saw it, they lost a game and got a point. The disappointment was more in their drowsy play and less in the fact that they didn’t make it eight in a row. 

In their eyes, the B's know they are playing well, and more importantly, they know what they’re capable of. The win-streak was by no means a bulletproof display of dominance, and more a confirmation of what they can do. They beat the best team in the league. They won games in which their legs weren’t going as well as they would hope. They found ways to win, and it led to a mindset that did not take a hit after Saturday’s loss. 

“We don't want to look too far ahead,” Michael Ryder said. “When we didn't do that we started winning games. We just took it one game at a time and made sure that we played a full 60 minutes every night. That's what we try and do. When we do that, good things happen.” 

Saturday was not one of the 60-minute efforts of which Ryder spoke. Despite getting on the board first in the second period, it stood as a sluggish 20 minutes for the B’s, and it took Matt Cooke’s inability to score an empty netter and a David Krejci strike with 32.5 seconds left to even get them the single point. 

“To me, we played probably half a game,” Julien said. “The first half of the first period I thought we started off well and then the second half of the first we just slipped. … Lately we’ve been winning games because we’ve played 60 minutes and tonight wasn’t the case.”

With the Bruins’ success has come increased pressure to sustain their level of play. It’s come from both the growing chatter throughout New England and from the team itself. 

“We just felt that we’re expecting a lot out of ourselves right now,” Julien said after the game. “[We’re] disappointed that we didn’t get that second point.” 

With the success they have seen of late, they have every reason to expect big things. Just two points behind the Flyers for the top spot in the Eastern Conference, the B’s have solidified their status as a legitimate Stanley Cup contender. If they can make a prolonged postseason run, perhaps the streak that started back on Feb. 17 will be a period that is pointed to as particularly telling. Still, consecutive wins aside, what stood out? They were an elite road team before embarking on a six-game trip that they would sweep, and simply kept it up.  

Perhaps the biggest thing the Bruins learned over the now-concluded streak was that they can play winning hockey in front of Tuukka Rask. The 23-year-old has often been the hard-luck loser this season, but he picked up wins in four of the Bruins’ seven wins since the streak’s first game in Long Island. They’ve known all season that they can win in front of Tim Thomas, and with the recent fortunes of Rask, they should take no single aspect of the streak as being more encouraging.

Despite Saturday’s loss, the Bruins’ unwavering mindset is key, as they will head to Montreal Tuesday for the season’s fifth meeting with the Canadiens. With five points separating the teams in the standings, the Bruins are in a position where they can either pull away or let the Habs back in the race for the division. 

Though they’re not mourning the end of their longest winning streak of the season, the Bruins can look at their last eight as whole and identify that they’re doing things right, and despite having off-nights (Tuesday in Ottawa and Saturday’s loss come to mind), they have momentum. For a team that as of Sunday has gone two whole days without a victory, that’s a good thing.  

“You'll take that point and worry about our next game and prepare for our next game, and put this behind us,” Johnny Boychuk said Saturday. “Just come away with positive thinking.”