Every great season has a game you can look back on and say, “That’s when I realized something special was happening with this team.”

The 2004 Boston Red Sox had the late July comeback win against Mariano Rivera and the New York Yankees, the game better remembered as the day Jason Varitek shoved his mitt in the face of Alex Rodriguez as all of New England screamed “Enough!”  The 2007 Red Sox had the “Mother’s Day Miracle” ninth-inning comeback against the Baltimore Orioles.

The 2001 New England Patriots were 1-3 and trailing Doug Flutie and the San Diego Chargers by 10 points in the fourth quarter when Tom Brady engineered a comeback that culminated in an overtime kick by Adam Vinatieri. We’ve seen a lot more of that since.

It’s always hard to isolate these moments in real time. We can sometimes be too quick in saying, “This win is the start of something special.”

Yet there was a feeling of just that Saturday night at Boston’s TD Garden.

Boston was trailing by two goals with less than two minutes to play, and seemed destined to lose a game to the Minnesota Wild. The Bruins, who had stormed out of the gate to sit atop the Atlantic Division, were on the verge of dropping another game and continuing a recent slide back to the rest of the pack.

David Krejci had other ideas. With Tuukka Rask pulled for an extra skater, Krejci got the Bruins within one with 1:55 remaining on the clock. He struck again 48 seconds later, and the Garden was rocking.

It was a beautiful site for Bruins fans, who have long wanted Krejci to shoot more. He’s a “pass first” center who loves to set up his linemates. When he shoots, good things happen.

Yet the most magical moment of the night was still to come. In 3-on-3 overtime, Torey Krug took the puck and skated end to end with one of the best rushes we’ve seen in years. Krug lugged the puck more than 180 feet, choosing not to pass it to Patrice Bergeron or Brad Marchand.

Instead, Krug turned on the jets as the seas parted before him and locked in on Minnesota goalie Alex Stalock. He tucked in a backhand at the last second, and was already curling into the corner as the puck trickled in through Stalock and the Garden erupted.

It was the type of defenseman rush we used to watch nearly 50 years ago when Bobby Orr regularly wove his magic at the old Boston Garden. You don’t see it much in the modern game, a sport still patrolled by behemoths on steel blades.

Yet there is always room for a skater with speed and creativity, two traits the 5-foot-9, 186-pound Krug has shown since his days at Michigan State. Those talents stand out in NHL overtime, where three-man units turn back time and skate like bantams out on the pond yelling “next goal wins!”

Rallying in the final minutes against a last-place team doesn’t mean you’re ready to return to the Stanley Cup finals. Yet the ability to flip the switch and win, even on nights they are not playing well, will help this team’s confidence going forward.

It will also build the belief that this team could be something special. And special nights like Saturday will have fans buzzing for a long time to come.

Tom Caron is a studio host for Red Sox broadcasts on NESN. His column appears in the Portland Press Herald on Tuesdays.

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