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Valtteri Puustinen ended a long drought. The blue line got some much-needed reinforcements. And the Penguins held the lead twice against Providence on Wednesday night.

It wasn’t enough to knock off the division-leading Bruins.

Providence quickly answered goals by Wilkes-Barre/Scranton and ultimately pulled out a 4-3 win over the Penguins in a shootout at Mohegan Sun Arena.

Wilkes-Barre/Scranton earned a valuable point in the standings, but didn’t make up ground in the race for the final playoff spot in the Atlantic Division. The Penguins (61 points) have eight games remaining to try and catch both Hartford (69 points, seven games left) and Bridgeport (68 points, eight games left).

Given those daunting numbers, Wednesday’s result was tough to swallow. Especially after the Penguins burst out to a 2-0 lead in the first period when Puustinen and Tyler Sikura scored goals 49 seconds apart.

For Puustinen, it was his first goal in over a month, with the last one coming on Feb. 24 against Syracuse. The Finnish winger had a big February, and that goal against the Crunch gave him five in seven games.

Sikura’s goal was set up by defensemen Taylor Fedun and Ty Smith who were back in the lineup after a call-up to Pittsburgh and an injury, respectively.

But Providence quickly made it 2-1 as Samuel Asselin scored just 25 seconds later. And, after a scoreless second period, the Bruins tied it up at the 4:51 mark of the third on a Luke Toporowski goal.

Puustinen answered with his second of the game and 23rd of the season less than a minute later, with Smith picking up another assist.

Fabian Lysell tied it back up with 10:55 left in regulation, and Providence goalie Brandon Bussi shut the door from there, coming up with four saves in overtime and then stoning Ty Glover, Smith and Sam Houde in the shootout. Lysell scored the lone goal in the shootout to give the Bruins the extra point in the standings.

Penguins goalie Dustin Tokarski finished with 29 saves on 32 shots. Drake Caggiula picked up assists on both of Puustinen’s goals.