‘Twas the last home game before Christmas
And all through the packed Garden House,
Bruins’ faithful stirring for an easy-win douse.
Prepped daily by Claude for a plus-.500 home mark,
Maybe St. Nicholas delivers Tuesday at the 10:00 pm mark.
NESN viewers ready, all snug and well fed,
Visions of a two-goal win in many a head.
Neely and Sweeney with promises in September,
Still selling us a hopeful winter to remember.
So they sprung off the bench in waves of Black and Gold,
Trying to get Johnny, “Seids” and the Isles to fold.
The boys exclaimed as they played sans much might,
Happy Christmas to all, but a very bad one tonight!

Pick one game so far in the 2016-17 season that falls under the category of “defining” and its Tuesday night’s encounter with the New York Islanders. A homecoming event for former Bruins Johnny Boychuk and Dennis Seidenberg, the Islanders marooned at the bottom of the Metropolitan Division and the Eastern Conference.

Ironically, they had a better home record than Boston’s 8-8-0 at 9-7-4, but a woeful road slate of 2-7-2. Four consecutive one-goal differentials with a 2-1-1 mark overall into Tuesday night; their last two-goal win back on November 27.

After Tuesday’s game, three on the road before returning New Year’s Eve for the final game of 2016 vs. the Sabres. Six of eight points a must against teams the B’s must finish ahead of in the Atlantic Division in Carolina, Florida and Buffalo to make the playoffs.

First things first, two points on the line vs. the Isles, winless in their last five at 0-4-1. Tuukka Rask (16-5-3, 1.82 GAA) vs. Thomas Greiss (6-5-0, 2.66). Rask was 10-3-0 with a 2.14 in 14 career games against the Islanders. Greiss is 0-2-0 with a 2.05 GAA in two career games against the Bruins.

Here’s what we learned as the Black and Gold persist in losing gimme games.

Gaffes from the opening bell

At 3:05, Brad Marchand took the shorter route behind the net while Rask played the puck. How do you spell disaster? Marchand bumped Rask off the puck, and Anders Lee stole the biscuit, looping back for an empty-net goal.

“I stopped the puck and then I turned around,” Rask assessed about the calamity. “I saw him flying in, and we were on the same rails. That’s about it. Usually, it’s not a forward who comes to grab it and we kind of both caught ourselves surprised in that situation.”

At 5:40 the B’s gave the Isles a 3-on-1 and Thomas Hickey wasted no time using his linemates – and Zdeno Chara — as passing bait when he drilled a 15-footer low and glove side of Rask for the early 2-0 lead.

“It’s a hole we dug in ourselves,” Claude Julien said in postgame refrain, “and to me, it’s not acceptable.”

“Seids” leading Isles in plus-minus

The two New York goals were scored with Seidenberg on the ice to push his team-leading plus-minus stat to plus-11.

“I jump on at the right times,” Seidenberg said Tuesday morning. “It’s a stat that goes the right way or the wrong way pretty quickly. I’m on the right side right now.”

“It’s emotional when those guys come back,” Isles coach Jack Capuano said after about Seidenberg and Boychuk’s reunion at TD Garden. “Even Johnny has been with us for a couple of years, so anytime you come back here, you want to play well. It was great for Seidenberg, you know seven years here and a Stanley Cup, you know his fans really appreciate him.”

Second-period clangings; then it’s 3-0 and Rask takes a seat

The Bruins clanged two posts behind Greiss, first by Patrice Bergeron at the four-minute mark and then 60 seconds later when Austin Czarnik found red paint instead of red light.

Not Rask’s night when Nikolay Kulemin tucked it home (Boychuk assist) when Rask played the puck at his post like picking a piece of fruit from a basket. That led to a Rask yank after three goals on 12 shots. Enter Anton Khudobin to stop the bleeding.

“Tuukka was part of it,” Julien said in defense of Rask. “But at the same time, I think Tuukka can be excused a lot better than others.”

Comeback of the year falls short

“It’s frustrating because they should get rewarded for more effort than they have.”

So said Capuano pregame. At 7-0-2 when leading after two periods and the Bruins at 1-11-2 when trailing, it appeared the reward was in the pocket.

But the B’s fourth line once again created a spark off Sunday’s only goal in that 1-0 win when Anton Blidh got an early Christmas gift with his first NHL goal at 3:04; Brandon Carlo and Khudobin assisting.

At 7:12, Dominic Moore (“7th Player Award”) scored his eighth of the year with assists to Jimmy Hayes and Chara. With a $900K salary, Moore is now third on the team in goal scoring.

It was Boston’s 40th shot on Greiss en route to a season-high 50-shot total. David Krejci was robbed of the equalizer with Greiss dead to rights at 10:32, the best save of the night by any one of the netminding combos.

“What you saw in the third period, I don’t know why we don’t bring that in the first,” an exasperated Julien said.

A Kevan Miller tripping call took the steam out of any comeback sails when Lee popped his second at 13:02.

“You’re never as good or as bad as you think,” Rask said about the loss.

Right now the Bruins are not as good as anyone thinks.

“Until we can find, or some of our best players can find their games,” Julien said, “we’re going to be playing these types of games, back and forth, winning a big one, losing another one, and so on, so forth.”

The two goals put Boston at a 2.3 per game average, 27th in the league.

Yikes, bring on Florida and Carolina.