The previous time the Bruins played the Columbus Blue Jackets, the Jackets’ 5-1 win at the Garden triggered the end of the Jim Montgomery Era.

The B’s have come a long way since then. But, boy, the return game in Columbus on Friday looked awfully familiar.

The B’s allowed odd-man rushes, made bad changes and couldn’t come up with a decent penalty kill as they were crushed by Columbus, 6-2, in an utterly forgettable game, snapping the B’s five-game point streak (4-0-1). Brad Marchand extended his point streak to 11 games with a secondary assist on Charlie Coyle’s third-period goal, but the game was long gone by that point.

Columbus broke the game open with four goals in a disastrous second period for the Bruins while the Jackets also scored three power play goals on the night

After traveling to Columbus on Friday morning out of the three-day Christmas break, the Bruins gave early indications that they would be having a “scheduled L” kind of game. They didn’t have a shot on net before the first TV timeout and then they took an old bugaboo when Morgan Geekie was called for offensive zone hooking on Dante Fabbro.

Fabbro actually could have been called for holding himself for squeezing Geekie’s stick with his arm. The refs didn’t see it that way and the Blue Jackets cashed in on the man advantage. On the power play, Joonas Korpisalo made the initial save on a Zach Werenski shot but he could not control the rebound. Sean Monahan chopped at the puck, bouncing it over Korpisalo and into the net for a 1-0n Columbus lead at 11:29.

That woke up the B’s briefly and they tied it at 15:13, with Geekie redeeming himself.

On the forecheck, Geekie separated Damon Severson from the puck behind the net and allowed David Pastrnak to take control of it. Pastrnak, deemed healthy enough to play after leaving the win over Washington on Dec. 23 with an upper body injury, came out from behind the net and fed Pavel Zacha for his ninth of the season.

The B’ s played pretty well after that, though Korpisalo had to come up with a big save in the final minute of the period. The puck got behind Nikita Zadorov in the offensive zone and he desperately tried to push it all the way back to Korppisalo. But Monahan chased it down and set up Mikael Pyyhtia for a wide open slot shot, but the former Blue Jackets goalie came out and made the huge save.

But the sloppy play was a harbinger of things to come.

Right out of the gate in the second, Korpisalo had to make a stop on a Kent Johnson breakaway after a bad drop pass by Coyle in the offensive zone.

But, after an ineffective Bruin power play, the bottom fell out with three Jacket goals in 2:47.

First, on a bad change by the B’s, Brandon Carlo was left alone with two Jackets. He went to the puck carrier Dmitri Voronkov but couldn’t shut down the pass. Voronkov got it over to Adam Fantilli, who walked in alone and roofed it over Korpisalo at 7:00.

Just 1:13 later, the Jackets got the B’s running around in their own zone before Monahan scored a backdoor goal off a Werenski pass.

Finally, after Charlie McAvoy was called for slashing on a Werenski breakaway, the Jackets made it 4-1 on the advantage. Off the faceoff on the PP, Kirill Marchenko got away with breaking Carlo’s stick on the B’s were immediately in the deep end. Eventually, it was Voronkov who scored on a nifty backhand roof job to give the Jackets a three-goal lead.

The B’s stopped the bleeding temporarily, but they would give themselves any false hope going into the third. After McAvoy took his second penalty of the period, Voronkov got position on Mason Lohrei in front to gather a Marchenko pass and beat a shell-shocked Korpisalo from the top of the crease with 46 seconds left in the second.

By the time Marchenko added an early third-period goal, it was time for Joe Sacco and his staff to try and devise a new plan to beat the Jackets because the two teams were going to get right back at it at the Garden on Saturday night.

And as the B’s have come to realize, the Blue Jackets are no longer a team to take lightly.