All of one month’s of work was on display for the Boston Bruins against the Columbus Blue Jackets on Monday night.

First the bad. A 3-0 deficit midway through the second period. Whether it was Tuukka Rask allowing a couple of soft goals, defensive breakdowns or just being outworked in puck possession battles, the Bruins looked sloppy – much like they did in all but one of their losses this month – and the Blue Jackets were anything but.

Now the good. From the midway point of the second to the final whistle of overtime, the Black and Gold looked like the squad that was clicking on all cylinders in each of their four wins. Their three unanswered goals coming from core players helped the Bruins steal a point at Nationwide Arena before falling short in the shootout, 4-3.

“We didn’t have the start that we wanted and they came out hard,” Brad Marchand told the press postgame. “We did a good job of climbing our way back and we got a point out of it, but we can’t play many games like that, or we’re going to have a tough year.”

Here is what we learned as the Bruins extend their point streak to five straight games.

That sloppy opening 20

More often than not, the Bruins were chasing the puck starting early in the first period.

It didn’t take long for the Blue Jackets to set the tone early on. Just 1:59 in, David Savard’s shot from the point found its way past Rask with the Bruins netminder trying to fight through traffic in front of him.

Even in the time between Columbus’ first and second goals – with Boone Jenner netting his first of the year at 17:08 tucking in a shot past Rask from behind the net – the Black and Gold were outworked and outhustled in every facet. The only silver lining was their penalty kill staving off three man-advantage opportunities against the Blue Jackets and their league-worst power play.

“It’s not acceptable, we need to be better,” head coach Bruce Cassidy told NESN’s Jack Edwards and Andy Brickley postgame. “We need to hold ourselves accountable, and I think our leadership group took it to heart.”

Speaking of leadership…

Chara and Bergeron set the tone for the response

Clearly upset by the first period effort, Bruins captain Zdeno Chara decided to take matters into his own hands during his fight with Josh Anderson just 40 seconds into the middle stanza. Still, it took a little longer for the Bruins to get that big lift as Tyler Motte – who was called up from Columbus’ AHL affiliate in Cleveland prior to Monday’s contest – notched his first of the season on a breakaway at 8:27.

Eventually, the Bruins started to get a few good shifts together starting at the midway point of the second. Finally at 15:37 Patrice Bergeron got Boston on the board during its second power-play attempt with his second of the season – and first since his four-point season debut against the Canucks on October 19.

Rask and Krug provide pivotal moments; Marchand gets milestone

In the early theme of bouncing back from tough results, two players, in particular, needed to do just that. First, it was Rask, who recovered from a rough 30 minutes to rob Artemi Panarin on a breakaway. Moments later, at 10:26, Torey Krug, who hit the post in the second – and came into Monday’s matchup looking to recover from his turnover and overtime icing night that led to both Kings’ goals on Saturday – found the back of the net for his second of the season for some much needed momentum.

It didn’t take long for the Bruins to tie it following Krug’s 4-on-4 tally. Just 1:21 later, Brad Marchand tallied his 200th career NHL goal – and the Bruins’ second power-play goal of the night – for the 3-3 equalizer.

Miller negates power play following Bjorkstrand’s hit from behind on Krug

In hindsight, Miller’s decision to drop the gloves following Oliver Bjorkstand’s hit from behind on Krug late in the third might not have been the best decision. Bjorkstand earned a five-minute major already for the hit, but Miller coming to the defense of his teammate wound up costly. In addition to his five for fighting, Miller also received two minutes for roughing and a 10 for instigating.

In the moment, however, Miller did the honorable thing to come to the aid of Krug and dropped Bjorkstand.

“To be honest with you, as I think back about it now, I kind of think that maybe I shouldn’t have done that,” Miller told the press about his decision to fight Bjorkstand. “But in the heat of the moment, when you see your teammate get hit like that it’s hard to restrain yourself. You never want to see a guy get hit like that and a guy was taking liberty out there so I kind of reacted, to be honest.”

The Blue Jackets wound up with a two-minute power play out of all of this. But the Bruins PK, like they did in the first, held strong and eventually forced the 3-on-3 overtime.

Bjorkstrand ends it in the shootout

Bjorkstrand came back to haunt the Bruins in the third round of the shootout to clinch the Blue Jackets’ win. Panarin set things up with his tally in the second round.

In a head-scratching move, Cassidy sent out Kenny Agostino in the first round of the shootout. With Bergeron and David Pastrnak (three assists) available one has to wonder if things might have gone differently had Cassidy gone with one of his aforementioned core players.

Alas, the Bruins have something to build on when they welcome a Golden Knights squad that is down to their fourth string goaltender on Thursday night at TD Garden.