Seven times this season the Bruins have lost a game in which they’ve held a two-goal lead. Two of those seven have come in overtime where the Bruins have won just once in six tries.

Long story short: The Bruins are missing out on valuable points in a season where they need every point they can get.

“Yeah it’s really clear. You know with the way things are right now in the standings you can’t give up points like that, and it’s what it’s going to come down to at the end of the year,” said Bruins’ forward Brad Marchand, who scored twice on Tuesday night. “You know every point right now is huge”

After goals by Marchand and David Krejci in the first 1:21 of the third period against the Toronto Maple Leafs gave the Bruins a two-goal lead, it looked like the Black and Gold were on track to kick the unofficial second half of the season off on the right foot.

But midway through the third, the Maple Leafs used two quick goals of their own to tie things at three and force overtime. For anyone who’s watched a good amount of Bruins hockey this season, well, you knew how this one was going to end.

“I think when we were up 3-1 we were feeling pretty good,” Marchand added. “We had some momentum and obviously with a two-goal lead in the third at home we should have felt really good so it’s a very disappointing loss.”

With two points virtually in their hands and the potential for post All-Star break momentum within grasp, the Bruins once again let another opportunity slip by. With the Atlantic Division and Eastern Conference standings so tight, the Bruins can’t be affording to let points slip away.

On a night that saw two teams who entered Tuesday within three points of the Bruins in the wild card race pick up victories, the B’s really shot themselves in the foot and in more ways than one.

“Yeah this was a big division game. You know we want to be climbing up the standings and pushing teams below us even lower,” said Krejci who scored his 12th goal in the overtime loss. “So we were going the right direction until they scored those two goals in the third period and it was kind of too late. But still, we went into overtime and missed our opportunities so we missed our chance to get two points.”

The Bruins could have easily avoided a disappointing loss to the Leafs. Sloppy play and positioning in their own end proved costly as the Leafs three regulation goals all came off of deflections from the slot area.

“Well they scored, three of the goals were tipped in. So that’s, to me, it’s poor coverage. And all three goals were kind of tipped from just probably ten to fifteen feet from our net, so the slot area was not covered very well,” a calm Claude Jullien told the media in his postgame press conference.

“We know they like to shoot for those tips, and we didn’t do a good enough job of taking care of that. So they did a good job of tipping those pucks. It’s something they work at, and again, the coverage wasn’t how it should have been.”

The Bruins currently hold the top wild card spot in the east because of the good things they’ve done. The bad things are the reason why they currently have little room for error. The Bruins know they need to turn things around and shy away from these third period collapses if a playoff return is in their future.

“You know good teams they put lots of games together. And it seems we play a few games good, then a few games we let slip away,” Krejci added. “So obviously we have a long way to be a great team. So we have to learn from those mistakes, but this is the time to do it. We don’t want to be playing catch-up hockey in March or April. So any point is crucial and we definitely let this one slip away from us.”

Are the Bruins one of those “good teams”? That still remains unknown.