It was much of the same reaction out of the Bruins dressing room on Tuesday night after their shocking 4-3 loss to the Minnesota Wild at TD Garden. Players were in disbelief after leading 3-1 heading into the third period, but the lack of tape to tape passes, the lack of hustle and the absence of Zdeno Chara was too much to overcome.

Lost in the shuffle was another dominant performance by the B’s first line as Seth Griffin scored twice, Milan Lucic played like the animal he is and David Krejci consistently found his line mates no matter where they were on the ice.

It was a six point night for the Black and Gold’s first line, a line that is starting to come together. Griffith also added an assist to go along with his two goals. Lucic had a goal and an assist while Krejci had a beautiful assist for Griffith’s first goal. To go along with his goal and assist, Lucic also contributed with seven hits throwing his body around all night. It may have been Lucic’s best game this season.

Griffith, on the other hand, is now tied with Carl Soderberg and Krejci for the team lead in goals with three. He had a great game for the B’s Tuesday night crashing the net every chance he had and even looked like Bobby Orr-flying through the air on his second goal that gave the home team a lead in the second period.

Head coach Claude Julien said if there was a bright spot Tuesday night, it was the play of his first line right winger.

“Well, that’s probably the brightest thing of the night for us, was the fact that Seth (Griffith) really played a strong game,” Julien said during his post game press conference. “That line last year scored a lot of goals from driving the net and he did a great job of driving the net every time. He got rewarded for it and he also made a nice play there on Looch’s (Milan Lucic) goal. If there’s somebody that should be walking out of here with his head up high, it’s him.”

Even Krejci praised his line mate after the game despite giving up a two goal lead in the final 20 minutes of play at home.

“It’s good to see him get two goals, especially goals like that that he drives the net so that’s what you want from your teammate, to drive the net,” Krejci said. “Looch did the same thing, so if some guy drives the net that means it opens up some room for our players, so I thought he played well. Hopefully he can build on this and play the same way next game.”

Of course Krejci would like to take the two points out of this game, but he senses his line is starting to feel more comfortable as a group and it showed.

“Well obviously when you score three goals as a line after two periods then you feel pretty comfortable, but the results at the end of the day it’s a loss and you try to take the positive things of the game, but it’s hard to after a loss like that.”

What was a career night for Griffith was simply ruined by the Wild’s comeback in the third period and he knows personal achievements come second especially after the tough result.

“Yeah it’s kind of hard to be happy but two goals obviously the wins more important,” Griffith said. “It’s too bad we didn’t have a very good third.”

With Krejci back in the fold, Lucic’s numbers all of a sudden have skyrocketed. He is now up to two goals and six assists which ranks him second on the team with eight points only behind Krejci who has nine.

It was another game where the Black and Gold did not play a full 60 minutes. It has been the story of their season through 11 games. But, it is nice to see Griffith and Lucic starting to produce points on that first line along with Krejci because it is desperately needed.

Hear what the Bruins had to say following their loss to the Wild: