Call it resiliency, call it ice water in their veins, call it a reverse of Game 4 or just a matter of having Tim Thomas in net. Whatever you want to chalk it up to, an obvious point from Monday night’s Game 5 of the Eastern Conference finals was that the Bruins had no business winning. Yet they won a game they had no business winning. Again.

For all the talk of how every little mistake, slow start or drowsy period can can doom a team in the playoffs, Monday provided the latest proof that just when you think it’s safe to say it isn’t their night, the B’s find a way to end up one win closer to their ultimate goal. 

This series has already proven that the “score the first goal or lose the game” line of thinking that became so popular early in the first round simply doesn’t apply. The team that has scored first has now lost three of the series’ five games thus far. Anyone watching the series has been conditioned to expect the unexpected, and anyone watching the Bruins’ playoff run just may be conditioned to start feeling confident when the B’s look like they’re headed for a loss.

Bruins players – those who pay attention to the media, if any of them do – spent two days hearing about their inability to play more than just a good first period in Game 4. They grabbed the 3-0 lead in the opening 20 minutes, but once the Lightning started to come back, there was nothing the B’s could do to stop them. One would think that the emphasis for Game 5 would be on coming out with a full 60-minute effort. 

Instead, the B’s went out and guaranteed (get it?) that the only way they would get a 60-minute effort would be if the game went into double-overtime. Sluggish movement, poor decision-making, ill-advised penalties (including two from Nathan Horton, who looked like he was reverting back to his out-of-control evil twin from earlier in the playoffs) and a stinky power play made up the list of undesirable sights in the game’s first 24 minutes.  

Yet somehow they were down only 1-0 throughout all that, and they found a way – through a brilliant performance from Thomas and improved play from the team’s top three lines (Rich Peverley ended up taking Tyler Seguin’s spot on the third line) – to pull it out. 

There’s the cliché of the final score being the only thing that matters, but the fact that this isn’t the first time that line’s been heard this postseason is what makes this Bruins team such an interesting bunch. Go back and look at Game 7 of the first round. The Bruins blew a third-period lead in the final two minutes when P.K. Subban of all people tied it up. They would end up winning in overtime and knock out the Habs. 

Then there was Game 2 of the conference semifinals. The Bruins fell behind, 2-0, early on a pair of James van Riemsdyk goals, and giveaway after giveaway makes it a scary first 12 minutes, a span that featured just three shots on goal for the B’s. But they came back to win in overtime despite the Flyers taking it to them the entire contest. After that May 2 game, Brad Marchand said the Flyers “dominated” the B’s and “easily should have won that game.”

So with as little as two and as many as nine games left in their season, maybe we can finally start to fill out the book on the 2010-11 Boston Bruins. They blow 3-0 leads and they win games they should lose. It’s about as odd a combination as you could think up for a team knocking on the door of the Stanley Cup finals, but it just goes to show fans that at no time should fans they be comfortable turning the game off.

One reason why the B's were able to get away with a subpar performance Monday? The penalty kill continues to be fantastic for the B's, and Chris Kelly wore the '80s jacket after the game as a result. In stopping all four Tampa power plays, the Bruins have now made it three straight games without a power play goal for the Lightning. They're the first team to keep Tampa's power play that silent this postseason, as the team's only three stretches of three power-less contests came in the regular season.

Players didn’t generally stray from the age-old “the next win is going to be toughest” line when talking about the possibility of going into Tampa and knocking off the Lightning in Game 6, but if they count themselves as fortunate as they should after Monday’s win, it should be impossible for them to get distracted by the shiny trophy they could play for in the next round. The Bruins, who will not skate on Wednesday, have to do everything they can to avoid the same type of play (Thomas saves, among other plays, excluded) when they take the ice for Wednesday’s Game 6. The opponent is too good a team to lose that game twice. 

“We can play better,” Horton, who had one of the Bruins’ two goals, said after Game 5. “We want to be better at the start of the game. We don’t want to give up that first goal. … There’s not much you can do but get back on it and work even harder to get back in it.”

After five games and three Boston wins, the argument could be made that the Bruins still have only played “their game” all the way through just once, which came in their 2-0 Game 3 win. They scored six goals in Game 2, but that was the hockey equivalent of a circus. It might take the Bruins’ best game of the series – perhaps of the postseason – for them to be able to take a trip west, and they should know it.

Zdeno Chara doesn’t always need to be a man of many words to answer a question, but his response when what the team is thinking going into Game 6 was right on the money. 

“Play better than we did tonight.”