BOSTON — It’s always tough when you lose the first game of a road trip.

It’s even tougher when you lose a player in the process.

That the Vegas Golden Knights fell to the Boston Bruins 3-2 in a shootout Monday at TD Garden was impressive given they were trailing 2-0 in the second period and once again were having trouble scoring. And when they lost one of their weapons in forward Braeden Bowman, that only compounded an already tough situation for a team that has struggled to score in losing five of their last six.

Bowman was assessed a five-minute elbowing major in the second period after catching Matt Poitras in the face and with it, a game misconduct. The Bruins, who already led 1-0, had a chance to break it open right there, but managed just one, a one-timer from Morgan Geekie.

The Knights managed to hang in there, raise their level of play, eventually tied the game and forced overtime only to lose when David Pastrnak beat Carter Hart for the game winner with the lone goal in three rounds of the shootout. It was the sixth time in nine tries in Boston that Vegas has come up short.

“Good effort,” said Mark Stone, whose second-period goal got his team going. “We had some pretty good chances to get more but I thought we really did a good job with that five-minute penalty kill. We were able to settle down and get to our game.

All in all, definitely a step in the right direction with the way we’ve been playing. Obviously two would be better than one but you take the good with the bad.”

The Knights outshot the Bruins 27-23, which is a good sign. They did indeed generate more chances than they had recently.

“We played tight and we were connected after that first goal,” said defenseman Noah Hanifin, who is a Boston native. “Giving them only one on that five-minute power play was big. We got some momentum after that and tilted the game back our way.

“The effort was there. That’s what’s important in the long run. There’s going to be bits that are good and bad but we competed, we battled and it’s just a matter of making that next play and putting the puck in the net, and that’ll come for us.”

“I thought as the game went on it looked like our energy level was good,” Knights coach Ryan Craig said. “It was after that kill that our energy level seemed to take off.”

Craig liked how his team didn’t back down against Boston, a team that likes to hit, especially on its home ice.

“There was a commitment to it, a heaviness to it, an engagement,” Craig said of his team’s physicality. “We got more pucks back. When we got going, our checking was the reason for it.”

The Knights were fortunate they weren’t down two forwards after Trevor Connelly got rocked behind the Boston net by Charlie McAvoy with 4:05 left in the first period and needed help to get off the ice and went right to the Vegas locker room. He did return for the start of the second period, which was welcome news for the Knights.

And it was even more welcome news when he tied the game 2-2 with 12:37 to play as Connelly got to a loose puck, banked it off Jeremy Swayman and in for his fifth of the season.

McAvoy had a string of visits to the penalty box. His holding penalty on Mitch Marner paved the way for Mark Stone to get the Knights back in it as he beat Swayman in close for a power play goal and cutting the Bruins’ lead to 2-1. McAvoy exited the box, said something to the officials and went right back in for unsportsmanlike conduct.

To their credit, the Knights stayed with it, kept up the forecheck, got more pressure on Swayman and at least gave themselves a chance going into the final 20 minutes. And when Connelly delivered, it energized the entire Vegas bench. The Knights went from potentially getting run out of the Garden to having a chance to steal two points.

“Give him a ton of credit,” Craig said of Connelly, who played a year collegiately at Providence before turning pro. “He’s continuing to show why he belongs here. That was a big goal.”

Monday was the first of four games in seven days on the road for Vegas. The Knights play in Pittsburgh Tuesday, Detroit on Thursday and wrap up the trip Sunday in Buffalo.

“We got a point,” Craig said. “Now we move on to Pittsburgh and try and build on it.”