The Boston Bruins are just incredible

BOSTON -- Even amid a historically dominant season, we've all had to remain a bit tempered with our praise of the Boston Bruins this year. It's not that they haven't been great; they certainly have. It's just that in a city that values championships and, really, only championships, there's been this underlying understanding that this regular season really doesn't matter. The postseason does.

Yet after the truly unbelievable 64 minutes and 55 seconds of ice hockey played on Tuesday night in Calgary, there's no use in delaying the praise.

These Bruins are incredible.

At 47-8-5, the Bruins have 99 points in the standings. The second-best team in the NHL has 86. At plus-97, the Bruins also have the best goal differential in the NHL. The second-best team is at plus-51, making the Bruins almost twice as dominant as the next-best team.

Through five months of the season, the Bruins have had exactly one losing streak, an 0-2-1 stretch at the end of January. Meanwhile, they've had eight winning streaks of at least three games, and they're currently riding their very best streak of the season, now having won eight straight.

And what an exclamation point win No. 8 was. Consider all of the factors at play in this particular game:

—They had just dealt with chasing around Connor McDavid, aka the greatest player on the planet, one night earlier. Fatigue was a significant factor.

—They were on the fourth and final game of a western road trip, and they had gone 3-0-0 heading into it. It's what's known colloquially in NHL circles as a "scheduled loss."

—They clung to a 2-1 lead despite being heavily outshot into the third period. They lost that lead and then fell behind.

—Their opponent is in the midst of a wild card race, in desperate need of points to get back into the playoff structure. They were playing at home and were well-rested, having not played since Saturday.

Yet by the end of the night, none of it mattered.

Linus Ullmark had a night for the ages, setting a Bruins regular-season record with 54 saves. The league ought to give him the Vezina right now … and they may want to give him the Hart while they're at it.

"Second [period] was bad, and Calgary really, they really outplayed us. If it wasn't for Linus, the game would have been out of hand already," said B's head coach Jim Montgomery, whose team had been outshot 39-9 through the first 40 minutes.

Offensively, the Bruins simply lacked the legs to skate with Calgary on this particular night. Yet when things looked a bit dire deep in the third period, Jake DeBrusk sacrificed his body to set up the game-tying goal.

That primary assist gave newcomer Dmitry Orlov his third point of the night, as he had scored Boston's first two goals. The trade acquisition now has five points since joining the Bruins on Saturday.

"It's special, this, for me," Orlov said. "I've never been on a new team and it's kind of still emotional, you know. And I try to come down, but it's hard to do."

Orlov wasn't the only Bruin riding the emotions on Tuesday, because in overtime, after Ullmark had made six more saves, the Bruins played till the very final buzzer. And with less than 5 seconds left in OT, Charlie McAvoy scored the game-winning goal.

The whole process was a thing of beauty. Patrice Bergeron cleanly won a faceoff in the Boston end with 16.6 seconds left on the clock. McAvoy received the feed from Bergeron and sent a long indirect pass up the left boards, utilizing Brad Marchand like a golden retriever. Marchand gained possession near center ice and carried into the Calgary zone, looking to angle himself to the front of the net. Marchand got a shot on net while being muscled away from the net by Andrew Mangiapane, and the puck was sent harmlessly to the corner, where it figured to remain for the final few seconds of OT. That's at least what the Flames believed.

But McAvoy, understanding the clock, skated behind the goal line, applying some back pressure on Noah Hanifin. McAvoy disrupted Hanifin's attempt to wheel the puck around the boards and out of the zone, allowing Marchand to get the puck back with time and space behind the Calgary net with 7 seconds left. From there, the skill of that trio took over.

Everyone in the Saddledome not wearing Bruins gear -- and there were many fans in attendance wearing Bruins gear -- was left stunned.

"I don't know how many shots we got. We've got a find a way to win that game," said Flames alternate captain Jonathan Huberdeau. "I think, overall, like I said, we deserved better. We gotta win that game. But, you know, Ullmark played well tonight. Focus on the [next game vs.] the Leafs, I guess."

In a year with several dozen to choose from, this was Boston's most impressive victory. Though the TV graphic was off by one, the shot disparity -- 57 to 20 in favor of Calgary --  was the most the Bruins had ever been outshot in a single game. Ever. The Bruins had, naturally, lost all four games when their opponent had at 30 shots more than they did. When getting outshot by at least 26 shots, the Bruins had lost all 17 games in franchise history. Extending that mark to getting outshot by 25 shots, the Bruins had won just once in 24 games.

This was a rare feat, and it was accomplished by a rare team.

"We know we're a great team," Ullmark said. "In our minds, there was never a doubt that we could come back."

Obviously, the significance of the postseason still stands. The Bruins have had plenty of great regular seasons over the past decade, but they don't have any Cups to show for it. A new line of stitching on that President's Trophy banner at TD Garden doesn't exactly get the people going.

But for now, it's OK to call this team what it is: incredible. Simply incredible. And while they can't actually play in the playoffs until the playoffs begin, wins like Tuesday's are why there's reason to believe this group is capable of keeping the run going through June.

That, though, is the future. And nobody knows what the future holds. For now, we know without a doubt that this Boston Bruins team is just incredible. Plain and simple.

You can email Michael Hurley or find him on Twitter @michaelFhurley.