“You look at records around the league,” Milan Lucic said Monday night after the Bruins’ OT loss to Pittsburgh, “when teams score the first goal, there is a pretty good percentage that they end up winning the game.”

How does this dynamic apply to the 2014-15 Boston Bruins?

The Black and Gold entered the game Monday night on a streak – and not one for bragging. In eight of their last 10 games, Boston coughed up the first goal of the game; 12 times so far in 22 games this season. In those 12, the Bruins’ record was .500 at 6-6. Make that 13 times in 23 games when Sidney Crosby sent a backhand to the back of the net at 3:33 of the first period, putting the ’Pens up early in this one.

Ironically, the Penguins lead the league with 16 first-goal strikes in their 20 games, while both teams had an equal 13 wins into last night.

A Bruins’ positive?

Lucic’s fourth goal of the season at 1:43 of the second period marked the ninth time in 13 games the Bruins tied a game at 1-1 after trailing. When Joe Morrow set a zinger from the left point over the shoulder of Marc-Andre Fleury seconds later for his first NHL goal – and point – to send Boston up, 2-1, it looked like a seventh “W” for the Bruins after falling behind early.

Evgeni Malkin’s tally, however, knotted the score at mid-way at 2-2, leaving the TD Garden crowd with yet another third-period squeaker to determine the outcome.

Make that OT. One in which a 3-on-2, just 32 seconds in, pushed that aforementioned B’s 6-6 slate to 6-7 when Malkin’s second goal sealed the Penguins’ deal in the 3-2 win.

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So, what’s to be made about scoring – or not scoring the first goal?

“Well, you know what, I don’t think it’s done on purpose, obviously,” Claude Julien said postgame. “I think considering where we’re at and what we have, the challenges that we have, that’s not my priority; although I’d like to see us score first. I think my priority is to see us compete every game and give ourselves a chance to win and I think that’s what we did tonight.” We even had that lead, even though we didn’t score the first goal. But at the end they managed to get the overtime one.”

When the Bruins don’t score first, the “P” word enters the conversation, and that falls more directly onto the shoulders of the goaltender and the go-to guys on the bench.

“We’ve done a good job at battling back,” Lucic added, “but still it’s a lot [less pressure] to play with the lead and move forward and I think we got to put a little emphasis on that going into Friday.”

And well beyond.

“I think we started off good [tonight],” Rask concluded, “and if we keep doing that we’re going to get the lead and play with the lead, so nothing to worry about there.”

OK.

“I think we got to do a little bit of a better job in getting that first goal,” Lucic summed.

Amen.

Hear what the Bruins had to say following their 3-2 overtime loss on Monday night: