If it weren’t for Tim Thomas, this game would have been over quick and it wouldn’t have been close.

The Boston Bruins dropped a tough shootout loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs at the Air Canada Centre tonight, 3-2, while allowing another 40 shots against.

• Tim Thomas was the no-brainer No. 1 star of the night tonight.  Stopping 38-of-40 shots, along with the help of about three or four extras off the posts, Thomas earned his 14th win of the season. It’s the third consecutive start where he has faced well over 30 shots (38 & 41 respectively). Thomas is now 1-0-1 against the Leafs this season with a  goals-against average of just south of 1.00 and a .967 save-percentage.
• The Florida-connection scored both Boston goals tonight. Horton, who snapped a 10-game goal drought, wristed his ninth of the season top-shelf over Leafs’ netminder, Jean-Sebastian Giguere’s glove-side. Goal 2: Campbell came racing into the offensive zone off the bench and pushed the puck off the blue-line to Seguin…who fed the puck back to Campbell in the slot and rifled a one-timer past Giguere.
• Boston’s penalty-kill went 2-for-3, but couldn’t kill the most important shorthanded time with Bergeron in the box with just 2:30 remaining in the third. Toronto yanked Giguere to make it 6-on-4, and former Bruins Kris Versteeg tied it up at two with his eighth of the season with just 0:43 remaining.
• Seguin now has 1-1-2 totals in two games against the rivaled Maple Leafs this season, with a plus-2 rating and five shots on goal. The 18-year-old also scored on the Bruins’ first shootout attempt, now making it 2-for-3 in shootout attempts on the season.
• And you can’t make it up…but former Bruins winger Phil Kessel put it past Thomas in the shootout which wound-up being the game-winner. Thomas squeezed the puck between his pads, but his momentum carried himself, and the puck, past the goal-line for the eventual game-winner.

More later…But the B’s are heading back home for a long homestand; six of their next eight games are at home. Buy Boston Bruins Tickets