This time, there was no celebratory embrace between the goalies after the horn sounded. There was not even the cold comfort of claiming a point from an overtime or shootout loss.
No, this was an old-fashioned regulation loss, the likes of which the Bruins hadn't suffered at TD Garden since last spring.
The streak is over. Long live the streak.
It had to happen at some point. The fact that it didn't take place until almost the middle of January, more than halfway through the marathon that is the NHL season is accomplishment enough.
The Bruins had hosted some of the top teams in the league in their own barn, and hadn't lost in 60 minutes. They had been subjected to some back-to-backs, and of course, they had weathered all the injuries they were dealt when the season began. And each night, they managed to almost always win, and when they didn't do that, they forced the opponent to the overtime or shootout before bowing.
Until Thursday night. Time's up.
Of all teams, it was the second-year Seattle Kraken who became the first team this season to walk in and get two points in regulation. The Kraken play a speed game, and the Bruins, for much of the night, couldn't keep up with them.
"I thought their speed, defensively, gave us a lot of problems,'' said coach Jim Montgomery. "On the forecheck, in the neutral zone, especially in the D-zone. We were kind of one-and-done in the offensive zone and I think that was a credit to how fast we played defensively.''
Montgomery blamed "mental fatigue'' for the Bruins' listless play offensively. The Bruins had been off since finishing their perfect 3-0-0 West Coast trip in Anaheim last Sunday night, but the grind of the season seemed to catch up with them on this night. When rebounds squirted loose in Seattle's end, the Bruins weren't sharp enough to pounce and get follow-up chances.
Meanwhile, the Kraken played with a jump to their game all night, the result of a team riding a six-game winning streak coming into the night and perhaps eager to test themselves against the No. 1 team in the league.
"We know we're going to get everybody's best,'' said defenseman Charlie McAvoy. "We've played really well this year. But there's no excuses. You have to show up and play every night and we didn't play well enough tonight to get the result.''
Though they wouldn't admit it, it's possible the Bruins thought if they could withstand the Kraken's push for the first 40 minutes, they could pull off one of their patented third-period comebacks. But when it came time to rally, the Bruins found themselves surprisingly lifeless.
Montgomery attempted to shuffle the chess pieces in the middle period and even had David Pastrnak playing on the top line, hoping that having him skate with Patrice Bergeron and Brad Marchand would be just the tonic the B's offense needed. But that didn't work, either.
The B's first-year coach had one more trick up his sleeve, pulling Linus Ullmark with about five minutes left in the third, in the hope the Bruins could get one past Martin Jones, and then keep the pressure on in the final minute or so for the equalizer. For a while, it seemed like a stroke of genius as the Bruins swarmed the Seattle net and kept the puck in the offensive zone for almost two straight minutes.
But the Kraken never buckled, and they withstood the blitz. Eventually a soft clearing attempt sailed the length of the ice and into the empty net, effectively sealing the B's fate.
You can't win them at all, even if, for more than three months, the Bruins almost did.
"There were things that we just weren't as sharp with tonight,'' confessed Brandon Carlo. "Those (kind of games) are going to happen throughout the year. It's a surprise that it hasn't happened, really, that much up to this point. But the best teams, obviously, bounce back as far as you can from that, so we'll be moving forward Saturday.''
The Maple Leafs visit then, and while there's a plenty comfortable margin between the two teams in the Atlantic Division standings, the presence of the Leafs -- playoff patsies for the Bruins in recent year -- that should get the home team's attention.
The only thing worse than having the streak come to end, after all, is a second straight loss to begin a home losing streak.