It took 65 minutes and eight rounds of the shootout for the Bruins night to end on a sour note.

After blowing leads of 1-0 and 2-1, defenseman David Schlemko beat Tuukka Rask with a nifty move in the shootout to give the Flames the 4-3 victory. Schlemko logged a grand total of seven minutes in his Flames debut.

The Bruins played well in Thursday’s loss dictating play for most of the game but simply could not do enough to earn the two points they so desperately needed.

In what has been a common theme as of late, the Bruins had a handful of excuses yet again as to what it was that prevented them from picking up the win.

Loui Eriksson blames bouncing pucks.

“Yeah I thought I had some really good opportunities to score a goal and the puck kept kind of bouncing on a couple of those and that extra second they came back and made a save so,” Eriksson said after the loss. “Yeah, it’s too bad it would be nice to get the two points tonight.”

Carl Soderberg blames the lack of bounces in their favor

“Yeah, I think maybe we need those bounces,” Soderberg mentioned. “We had enough scoring chances, like you said, today. When we play that game we have a lot of scoring chances after that to win the game so hopefully we can play with a lead next game.”

Milan Lucic blames the lack of a killer instinct.

“It seems like that’s been our biggest challenge this season is having that killer instinct and finishing off plays,” said Lucic who scored his 14th goal of the season against the Flames. “It cost us again tonight when we had opportunities to—when we had the lead to extend the lead and when we made it three, three we had chances to win the game and we don’t bear down and gave them a chance to win it in the shootout.”

The Bruins can sit here and make as many excuses as they want, but the bottom line is simple. The Black and Gold need to put those excuses away and starting winning some hockey games.

With wins by both the Florida Panthers and Philadelphia Flyers, things are getting very tight in the race for the final wild card spot in the Eastern Conference. The Panthers sit two points behind the Bruins while the Flyers sit just four back. Playing very good hockey of late, the Ottawa Senators have made their way back into the race as well, sitting five points behind Boston.

“Nineteen games left, especially with this stretch. Today was the start of 11 games in 18 days and we know this is our season,” Lucic added. “If we want to be in the playoffs this is the most important time of the year for us to get our game going and get points and not give points away, kind of like we did tonight.”

The Bruins hold their playoff lives in their own hands. With multiple games left against the Panthers, Flyers and Senators, the B’s essentially control their own destiny. But if they continue to make excuses for what is going wrong instead of facing the music, making the playoffs this season could be just a dream for a underachieving team.