After hanging tough with — and actually taking a 3-2 lead over — the big, bad Boston Bruins after 40 minutes on Tuesday night, the Winnipeg Jets came apart at the seams in the third period and fell 5-3 to the defending Stanley Cup champs at TD Garden.

It was another reminder that you virtually need to play a perfect game to defeat the Bruins right now, even with Brad Marchand sitting on the sidelines serving his five-game suspension and Conn Smythe winner Tim Thomas taking a night off. All that means is that the Bruins have outstanding depth and an outstanding backup in Tuukka Rask.

Until their third-period woes hit, the Jets actually did some good things.

Winkler product Eric Fehr scored his first goal of the season (in his 18th game), Chris Thorburn got behind the defence and earned a penalty shot (though he was denied and is still searching for his first goal of the campaign), captain Andrew Ladd scored his 14th goal of the year (but also took two bad penalties, one of which proved to be costly) and Blake Wheeler scored his ninth goal on a nifty redirection.

Goalie Ondrej Pavelec also played well. Despite giving up five, he made 37 saves and can hardly be faulted for either of Nathan Horton’s backdoor tap-ins, Benoit Pouliot’s PP marker or Tyler Seguin’s strong move to the net. No, he didn’t look great on the penalty shot but give Thornton credit, he made a strong move to the backhand, a very strong move.

Pavelec made 19 saves in the third period and was the only reason this wasn’t a lopsided blowout.

The bad?

The Jets power play was 0-for-4, failed to connect on a 28-second 5-on-3 during the second period and gave up a shorthanded, penalty-shot goal to Shawn Thornton.

Instead of forging ahead and taking a 3-1 lead, the Jets found themselves tied and while Fehr eventually restored the one-goal lead, a sloppy start to the third period saw the Bruins score three times in the first seven minutes to crush the visitors spirit.

The game was costly in more ways than one, as forward Tanner Glass (eye) and D-man Zach Bogosian (lower-body) left the game with injuries and didn’t return.

In his post-game media discussion, head coach Claude Noel was unable to provide much of an update on either player, though he said Bogosian was day-to-day. It’s worth noting that Noel also said Byfuglien was day-to-day with a lower-body injury and he sat out his seventh consecutive game on Tuesday.

Speaking of Noel, the last thing he said to reporters was that he was disappointed with the play of Evander Kane, who saw Ladd play the bulk of the game on the top unit with Wheeler and Bryan Little.

It was clear Noel was calling Kane out and it will be interesting to see how Kane responds to the criticism when the Jets are back in action on Thursday against the San Jose Sharks.

Kane has 18 goals and 31 points and has been a driving force for the Jets.

However, he’s 20-years-old and has said himself he needs to work on consistency. This is his latest chance to deal with a little adversity and how he responds to it will certainly be important to the Jets’ collective fortunes going forward.