Five months ago, every Bruins fan you know was giving reasons one through ten as to why the Phil Kessel trade was a clear cut victory for the Black-and-Gold. These reasons, which varied from logical to inane to borderline psychotic, revolved largely (nearly 100 percent, actually) around the talent level of one Tyler Seguin. Drafted by the Bruins with the second overall pick in 2010, the addition of Seguin to the Bruins’ present and future made the club a perennial contender, and therefore better than Toronto. Seguin, a gifted scorer and with the potential to be the face of a franchise, was the reason that the Garden would be rockin’ for the next 20 years.

But tonight, those same fans at the Garden, 17,565 strong, let their voices be heard, and booed the absolute hell out of the player they certainly praised in the previous three seasons.

Booing the 21-year-old Bruin-turned-Star with each touch of the puck tonight, there was just one problem with the crowd’s displeasure with No. 91: They forgot about the other former Bruin and current member of the Dallas Stars, multi-faceted forward Rich Peverley.

In a game that started with Dallas scoring on their first goal on their first shot, compliments of Jamie Benn and good for his fifth goal of the season, a quick wake-up from the Boston offense simply took it to Kari Lehtonen.

Ultimately knotting things up with Torey Krug’s fifth of the season, and at one point holding a 15-1 shot advantage over Dallas, it would be the Stars’ weathering of the B’s storm and leadership from Benn and company that got things back on track for Lindy Ruff’s squad.

“They had us back on our heels. Once we got midway through the period we started to come around. At the start of the second, our guys did a tremendous job,” said Ruff. “I thought [Jamie] Benn and Tyler [Seguin] started the period with an unbelievable shift, and I thought that turned the game.

“I thought the leadership of our team was fantastic after the first period. I give it all to [Jamie] Benn and Fidds [Vernon Fiddler]. What Fidds did in the first, and even the penalty killing with Horc [Shawn Horcoff] and all those guys. Those guys deserve a lot of credit,” Ruff said, adding, “You can say all you want as a coach, but I think those were the guys out there that went and changed the game.”

Hitting a lull through the middle frame, Boston broke through, and with just 8:21 to go in the game, jumped ahead by way of a Milan Lucic deflection off Dougie Hamilton’s blue-line wrister. Giving Lucic his seventh goal of the season, matching last year’s meager scoring output, all eyes turned to the B’s defense and Tuukka Rask to simply hang in there.

But with one bad change and a Dennis Seidenberg hook, Vern Fiddler was given the chance the Stars needed to even things up with just 2:34 to play in the third. Awarded a penalty shot, just the second of his career, the 33-year-old Fiddler wasted no time in absolutely fooling Rask and squaring this one back even, leaving a frustrated Rask to slam his stick in anger.

“If it’s a goal, he beats me clean, obviously,” a clearly agitated Rask said after the loss, his fifth of the year. “I got it up pretty quickly so, I’d like to stop every shot but it’s not a reality.”

With 65 minutes in the books and no winner, and the Bruins outshot 35 to 21 after Adam McQuaid’s first period roughing penalty, the game went to a shootout, where the skill-set of the former Bruins simply shined.

Despite a five-hole goal from Patrice Bergeron in the top of the first round, Rask and the Bruins were simply victimized by Seguin’s unbelievable snipe in the bottom of the second, and sent to the locker room with just one point in the bottom of the fourth behind Peverley’s five-hole drive.

Awkward.

“I didn’t even think about that,” Peverley, a Bruin of 127 games and two trips to the Stanley Cup Final, said when asked if he knew that his goal would be the winner heading into it. “I was just trying to go in with some speed, and maybe fool him going five-hole. Luckily, it snuck through.”

For Peverley and Seguin, the trip back to Boston, captured best by the Bruins’ first period video tribute to the two, definitely had its fair share of weird feelings, especially when you look back at the wars they went through as members of the tight-knit B’s clubs of 2010-11 and beyond.

“I think I was more nervous for this game than I was for any of the Stanley Cup Finals. It was emotional for me, but it was fun to be here,” Peverley, whose Bruin playoff resume included nine goals in 53 games, said. “[On] that team, a lot of those guys over there are some of my best friends.”

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