There is no shame in losing a one-goal game to the best team in the league.

The Bruins dropped a 3-2 result to Washington on Tuesday night at TD Garden. It could have been at least a 1-point decision had perpetual Bruins killer Braden Holtby not stopped Zdeno Chara on the rebound of a Ryan Spooner shot in the final minute of regulation.

A youth hockey team would have been treated to ice cream cones after such a 60-minute effort. But the NHL is not a league for such sentiment.

The reality is that the Bruins have lost five of their last six games. They kick off a five-game road trip Friday in New Jersey. They are not in a good spot.

“It’s no moral victory,’’ said coach Claude Julien. “But I can’t criticize the effort our team gave tonight. In the situation we’re in, we almost had to play the perfect game to beat those guys. I think we gave ourselves a chance there. We never quit.’’

The Bruins were shorthanded to start (no David Krejci, no Brad Marchand) against a team that gives opponents no shifts off.

They finished it without Adam McQuaid, one of the defensemen tasked to lean on Washington’s secondary scorers.

At 4:47 of the second period, Zach Sill flattened McQuaid from behind. The force of the collision drove the side of McQuaid’s head into the glass. McQuaid fell to the ice and stayed down for several minutes. After getting to his skates, McQuaid needed assistance from his teammates to get off the ice. He walked down the tunnel to the dressing room with help.

McQuaid did not return. After the game, Julien said he did not know about McQuaid’s condition.

Sill was not penalized. It is possible the Department of Player Safety will summon Sill to provide an explanation for the hit.

“I thought it was a bad hit,’’ said the Bruins’ Patrice Bergeron, who grabbed Sill after the incident. “It’s one of those where it happens fast. From my angle, it was a bad hit. There was no need for him to hit him like that. It was definitely tough to see Adam go down as hard as he did.’’

The Bruins already were down one goal at the time of McQuaid’s exit. Bergeron and Zdeno Chara had done a good job blanketing Washington’s top line of Alex Ovechkin, Nicklas Backstrom, and T.J. Oshie. But the Capitals’ depth punched through at 15:01 of the first.

Second-liner Andre Burakovsky handed the puck off to linemate Evgeny Kuznetsov in the right corner. As Kuznetsov protected the puck from Landon Ferraro and Dennis Seidenberg, Burakovsky eluded the Boston defense. Burakovsky, who had gone up to the right point, slipped through the slot and skated behind Spooner. Kuznetsov spotted Burakovsky going to the far post and dished the puck through traffic. Burakovsky had an easy tap-in.

“There’s a couple guys on their team who like to go all the way down and come all the way up to the blue line,’’ Spooner said.

“As a centerman, sometimes it’s hard. As a whole, we need to cut the ice in half. A couple times, we didn’t do that. It was tough. We got caught on that goal there.’’

Kuznetsov doubled his team’s lead with a power-play snipe at 12:40 of the second.

The Bruins punched back less than three minutes later. After taking an outlet pass from Chara, Bergeron advanced the puck through center ice and up to Brett Connolly. The right wing snapped a cross-ice pass to Loui Eriksson, who beat Holtby at 15:26.

The Capitals reclaimed their two-goal lead at 10:41 of the third. Dmitry Orlov’s hammer from the point pinged off iron. Marcus Johansson, who had gained net-front position on Seidenberg, muscled the puck past Tuukka Rask to make it a 3-1 game.

“Our D’s did a decent job,’’ Julien said. “The goals they scored, we’ve still got to be better. We’ve got to win those battles in front of the net.

“We can’t let those passes go through our defensive layer on that first goal. If we do the job properly, that pass doesn’t get through. There’s mistakes being made.’’

The Bruins answered with a power-play goal at 11:52. For the second time, Bergeron’s rapid movement through the neutral zone led to a goal. After pushing the puck up to Spooner, Bergeron reeled in a return pass and snapped the puck over Holtby’s far pad.

The Bruins kept pushing. In the third period, they led the Capitals in attempted shots, 22-13. Thirteen of those whacks made it through on net.

But there were no more leaks on Holtby. The better team won.

Fluto Shinzawa can be reached at fshinzawa@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @GlobeFluto.