It was a battle of the 8’s. Boston entered the game locked into the Eastern Conference’s final playoff spot with 71 points; ditto for the Calgary Flames in the West with 72.

While that is good — technically — for a No. 6 rank overall, the Flames, tied with San Jose and Los Angeles in points, get the playoff nod with more total wins. The two current Western Conference wildcard teams, Winnipeg and Minnesota have more points than Calgary, but play in the Central Division.

Here’s your water-cooler Calgary-Boston stat at first faceoff: When was the last Calgary goal scored on Boston ice? Believe it: October 19, 2006 — almost 10 years ago. The Bruins had shutout the Flames the last three games played at TD by a combined 16-0 score.

That skein ended at 18:11 when Sean Monahan put one past Tuukka Rask on the power play after Brad Marchand’s wraparound goal at 7:46 staked the Black and Gold to an early lead. It was Monahan’s team-leading 23rd on the season

The Flames, 2-2-0 thus far on a grinding seven-game road trip, coughed up the lead at 2:30 of the second period on a tic-tac-toe play among David Pastrnak, Ryan Spooner and Milan Lucic. Lucic would take the “toe” to the bank with a 15-foot laser past Ramo, his 14th of the season.

“They compete hard,” Claude Julien said after morning skate about one of the NHL’s most improved teams. “Because they play that type of game they have a tendency to wear teams down at times and they’ve been able to make some pretty impressive comebacks.”

One was three weeks back on February 16 when the Bruins blew a three-goal lead en route to a 4-3 OT loss. Two nights ago, the Flames gave up a 2-0 lead in Philadelphia before coming back in OT for the valuable two points.

Which way did this one go?

At 14:26, Rask played his own version of tic-tac-toe with the Flames, giving Jiri Hudler a juicy rebound – and open net — off a Mikael Backlund blast from the top of the right faceoff circle.

At 17-13-1 on the road, those two “C” themes referenced by Julien would be front and center for Calgary in the third period – and beyond: compete and comeback.

Loui Eriksson missed a wide-open net two minutes into the final frame.

“Johnny Hockey,” Johnny Gaudreau, of Boston College fame and last year’s Hobey Baker Award winner, put on a passing clinic that ended with a power-play goal at 4:59. Gaudreau, a sure-fire Calder Trophy finalist for rookie-of-the year, wristed a 20-footer past Rask for his 16th of the season and 46th point – more than any player on the entire Bruins’ roster.

At 11:40 Eriksson would atone, putting a doorstep open-net rebound past Ramo for his 15th goal, assisted by Chris Kelly and Carl Soderberg to knot the game at 3-3.

Both Rask and Ramo made late-period, big-time saves to push the game to overtime. Both teams among the league’s best in OT outcomes – the Bruins at 7-3, the Flames the best at 9-3.

Those OT stats remained intact when the game headed to shootout where the Flames held the advantage at 3-1, Bruins at 2-6. Postgame comment about shootouts by Claude Julien? “They suck. They suck.” he said twice emphatically – and with some question about the reference. “That’s my version of shootouts.”

The Bruins among the NHL’s lowest at about 13 percent of shots taken compared with the league average of about 32 percent would lower that number by going without a goal until the fifth round when Patrice Bergeron gave a the Garden crowd something to cheer about, putting the Bruins ahead. It was the only Boston goal in six shootout rounds.

But a Josh Jooris counter pushed the game to round six where Lucic fanned and defenseman David Schlemko did not, giving the Flames a 4-3 win. It was Schlemko’s very first game as a Flame after clearing waivers from Dallas at the trade deadline on Monday. Had one but goal in 25 games this season.

With four days rest, Julien said, “We were ready to play and played hard. Again, the challenge for our lack of finish is probably the biggest concern right now. I think we had the better game 5-on-5.”

They did not have the better game in OT or shootout.

“If we finish around the net, it’s over,” he said.

With 18 games remaining, if the Bruins don’t start finishing soon, well…