MONTREAL — As the final seconds ticked off the clock at 9:40 p.m. in Montreal Tuesday night, a different countdown began. While the clock at Bell Centre read 00:00, a clock of about 21 hours and 40 minutes started for one team’s last game of the season. 

Once that clock reaches zero, the Bruins will have 60 minutes of hockey (or, the way this series has gone, more) to either pack their bags for Philadelphia or begin clearing out their lockers.  

Thanks to a 2-1 loss to the Habs in Montreal (and some unlucky concert scheduling by the folks at the Bell Centre) the Bruins have a matter of hours to get their act together for what will be either a happy ending to a terrifically entertaining series or a disappointing ending to what seemed to be one of their more promising seasons in recent memory. There isn’t much they can do in such a short span of time. They can’t fix the horrific power play (0-for-19 in the series) in one day. They can’t revamp their approach in one day. Nothing major can change for them over a matter of hours. All they can do is get ready like they would in any other back-to-back scenario. 

“You go on the plane, eat something, relax and get your sleep,” Dennis Seidenberg offered after Tuesday night’s loss. “That’s all you can do.”

Should the worst-case scenario play out, the sight of the hated Montreal Canadiens celebrating at TD Garden could just rival the letdown B’s fans felt a year ago when the B’s blew a 3-0 series lead to the Flyers with the Habs waiting for them in the conference finals. People will wonder whether members of the organization will keep their jobs, while the team will try to throw water on the fire over the summer by hyping another shiny top 10 pick. 

Folks around Boston know better than that, though. They don’t want another summer of “this next one is the year.” They did that already, when Nathan Horton and Tyler Seguin held up their jerseys in their introductory press conference. If this season ends before Eastern Conference finals, it will be considered a major failure. The B’s have less than one day to stop that from happening. They have less than one day to force their fans to anxiously read up on the Flyers, rather than dejectedly scrolling through Central Scouting rankings. 

“Just focus on getting ready,” Mark Recchi said of what the coming hours will hold. “You’ve got to relax and you’ve got to get ready to play a one-game series now. We’ve worked all year to get home ice, and we’re going home. We’ll get a lot of rest tonight and focus on what we have to do, make little adjustments, but for the most part, we’ll just save our energy and get ready.“

One thing the B’s won’t do in the meantime is come up with excuses. They had nothing to say of the somewhat controversial officiating in Game 6, and even downplayed the lack of time they have before what Zdeno Chara called “the most important game of the season.”

“It’s fine,” Recchi said of the quick turnaround. “We’re all in great shape. We played back-to-backs all year. It’s no different than anything. It’s just go and prepare the same way, and get as much rest as you can tonight and in the afternoon tomorrow. I’m sure we’ll have some meetings in the morning, just talk about things we have to focus on, and we’ll be fine.” 

Yes, they have played back-to-backs. In five of those back-to-backs in the regular season, the second game was at the Garden following a road game. The B’s record in those games was 3-1-1 (playoff translation: 3-2), though the lone time the Habs were involved, the B’s dropped a 3-1 contest to Montreal after returning from their 7-4 come-from-behind win over Pittsburgh. 

It also doesn’t help that Game 7 has been about as good to the Bruins as Tomas Kaberle has been to the team’s power-play success. To this point, all of Claude Julien’s seasons with the Bruins have ended with a Game 7 loss. Prior to the catastrophe vs. the Flyers last year, the B’s were eliminated in seven by the Habs in 2008 and lost Game 7 to the Hurricanes at home in 2009. Wednesday night, he’ll have his fourth crack at such a game in as many seasons, and it would be miserably poetic for him to see this season (and potentially his time in Boston) end with another Game 7 loss. 

If you want some positive Game 7 numbers for the Bruins, you can find one, but you’d have to have a pretty good memory. The Bruins’ last Game 7 win did come against the Canadiens, though it was back in 1994 at the Boston Garden. 

So, is less than a day long enough for these thoughts to creep into their head? Will they think about the reputation they have for not being able to close out series when they have the chance? Will they think about the fact that they could lose series in which they led twice in two years? Will they think about the fact that Youppi was more intimidating in the Bell Centre than their power play? Maybe they should. Maybe they should realize that the perception of the Bruins isn’t entirely flattering this time of year. Maybe, as Milan Lucic said earlier in the day Tuesday, they have thought about what happened a year ago. They have plenty that they could think about over these next hours, and maybe thinking about it won’t hurt.