Heading into Tuesday’s contest against the Tampa Bay Lightning, the Boston Bruins knew their next two games would be a tough test for a team that was finally starting to get hot.

With the Atlantic Division leading Lightning followed by the red-hot New York Rangers on the docket, the Bruins had a chance to show the National Hockey League that they’re a team that’s not going away in the Eastern Conference playoff picture.

Searching for their fourth straight win, the Bruins played a solid 60-minute game, knocking off the Lightning 4-3 Tuesday night. Forty-eight hours later, the Black and Gold hosted the Rangers, a team with just two losses in their last 15 contests.

The B’s had no problem with the Rangers, dominating the Rangers in a 3-0 shutout, a win that propelled the Bruins past the Rangers into the top wild card spot in the Eastern Conference.

“Those are two good hockey teams that we played, and they play a high-tempo, high-speed game, and they have a lot of offensive threats,” said forward Chris Kelly. “I thought we did a good job keeping the pace the way we wanted to play the game, as opposed to having them keep the pace.”

The Bruins did catch a bit of a break in both wins as the Lightning were without leading scorer Tyler Johnson (upper-body) and the Rangers were without top center Derek Stepan (upper-body).

Despite who was and was not on ice, the Bruins know how big those two victories are and can only hope the wins continue to pile up.

“Well, I mean, we’ve just showed that when we’re playing well, and with the group that we have here, I think we’re as good as any team in this league,” head coach Claude Julien said after Thursday’s victory. “That’s never been a doubt. I think the biggest thing, the biggest challenge was to find our game; it took us a while and now we’re starting to find it, so now it’s important for us to keep it and understand the importance of this second half here.”

Sitting outside the playoff bubble heading into the New Year, the Bruins knew they needed to win games in bunches. They’ve done just that. To go along with their fifth straight win, the Bruins have earned at least one point in nine straight games.

With three games left before the All-Star break, Patrice Bergeron knows the importance of heading into the break with momentum on their side.

“Yeah, I think it is moving in the right direction. I don’t think we’re satisfied with it. We have a goal of finishing strong before the All-Star break, and we’re not there yet,” said Bergeron, who scored the Bruins first goal of the game Thursday night.

“There’s three games left. We talked also about our small home stretch here, that we’ve started on a good note with the first two games, but we’ve got to finish strong also against Columbus, and we know what happened against them last game. So it’s going to be a tough game again, so we’ve got to make sure we stay with it, and we keep getting better.”

A week and a half ago things were gloomy in Boston, but the sun is starting to shine for the Bruins. From Tuukka Rask’s much improved play to David Pastrnak pumping life into the club, things are getting much better for the 2014-15 Bruins. These past two victories will do nothing but help the B’s grow their confidence while they climb up the standings.

“We are climbing in the standings so that’s a positive thing, five in a row. Even though before we lost some games in overtime, we were still in it so we are finding ways to win hockey games,” said David Krejci, who scored his sixth goal of the season on Thursday. “We had some tough games lately and we were able to get two points out of it so obviously the confidence is much better than it was a month ago but we know that we still gotta work at some things.”

The Bruins are in no way comfortably sitting in a playoff spot. But they are without a doubt a bit more comfortable than they were a month ago. Anyone who has watched the team of late can see a much more confident team.

A stretch of good hockey will do that to a team.

“We’re finding ways to win games. We’re playing a much better team game I think. Of course Tuukka  was great for us tonight in net,” said Loui Eriksson, who scored his 10th of the season in the third period.

“It’s nice to be on a winning streak and just keep playing like we’ve been doing and hopefully we can get more wins.”