When the Bruins were in the midst of their impressive seven-game win streak, people saw just how good they can be. All of the summer hype that surrounded the team in the months leading up to the regular season suddenly seemed on par. Yes, they had been a very good team to that point, but by late February, people some thought that all the questions about the 2010-11 Boston Bruins were answered.

With the team running into a six-game speed bump (1-2-3), it seems that it may be time to pump the brakes on that logic. As far as rosters and potential go, there aren’t many teams more capable of making a serious Cup run than the Bruins. Still, while last month’s win streak may have made so much seem certain, they have since proven that there is more to be learned about this club over the rest of the regular season. 

Thursday, there was plenty that could be learned, or perhaps realized, as the B’s fell to the Predators in overtime, and here’s the biggest one: If the Bruins can’t hold on to win games like Thursday night’s contest in Nashville, they are in trouble. 

The 4-3 overtime loss (recap) was by no means a layup that the Bruins completely gave away, but it was winnable enough that the one point they got should not be seen as comforting. To use a hockey cliché, both teams battled. When one team scored, the other team responded within minutes. No team led by more than a goal at any point, and the longest a lead lasted in the game was 9:14. 

Despite how close of a game it was, the Bruins need to look at it as one they can’t lose when the playoffs roll around. Sure, they ran into some bad luck (Nathan Horton hit a post in the third period and Colin Wilson’s second period was redirected just oddly enough to fool Tuukka Rask), but they also blew two leads and took a crippling penalty with 2:01 remaining in overtime. On Thursday, Steven Kampfer’s holding penalty ended up being the difference between one point and a potential two points. If he takes that penalty in the playoffs, he puts his team in a far more dangerous hole, and one where he might not be so easily forgiven by a city that has embraced his presence on the blue line since December. 

From an offensive standpoint, they received very encouraging play from a couple of guys who have been question marks in Tyler Seguin and Michael Ryder. The former opened the game’s scoring and drew a five-minute major, while Ryder had multiple scoring opportunities and didn’t seem to slow down over the course of the game. Patrice Bergeron, who had cooled off over his last seven games, came up with a big third-period goal. Unfortunately, Thursday proved to be latest example of a night in which the good outweighed the bad. 

The B’s have now seen four of their last six games go to overtime. One resulted in a shootout win, while the other three ended with them getting a point in overtime losses. Mid-March isn’t a good time to fall into the habit of “escaping with a point.” After all, if it happens a month later, the team gets nothing but one game closer to elimination. Thursday, the Canadiens used the B’s latest overtime loss to bring them a point closer to the B’s thanks to a shootout win over the Lightning. 

Despite the Habs inching closer to the point that they are now three points behind the B’s (Montreal has played one more game than Boston), the Bruins still control their own destiny when it comes to sewing up one of the top three seeds in the Eastern Conference. Given that they’ll face a fair amount of playoff teams and teams fighting for postseason spots in their remaining regular season games, they’ll need better results than Thursday’s. 

“We shouldn’t lose this kind of game,” Rask told reporters after the game. 

The rightfully disappointed goaltender’s words may have been simple, but they ring true for a team with both aspirations and expectations for playoff success. It was the type of game the Bruins, given the goaltending they have received this season (including Rask’s effort in the contest) should expect to win. A month from now, and perhaps farther down the road, a game like Thursday’s could be the type that makes or breaks the B’s in the postseason. They’ll have to play every minute of those contests – especially when there are more than 60 of them – a little better than they did in Nashville.