B’s tough to beat
Islanders latest to fall short
NEW YORK — One of these nights, the Bruins are bound to have a bad game. The law of averages and the hockey gods will dictate it. But until that higher power intervenes, the B’s will just keep chugging along.
The Bruins again got goals from three different lines and handed the New York Islanders just their fourth regulation loss at home, taking the lead for good in the second period and adding three insurance goals in the third to secure a 5-1 victory at Barclays Center.
Danton Heinen, Patrice Bergeron, Brad Marchand, Tim Schaller and Noel Acciari scored for the B’s. Tuukka Rask stopped 25-of-26 shots.
Since losing Nov. 15 to the Anaheim Ducks, the Bruins are 15-3-2. Rask is 110-1 since his last regulation loss, Nov. 26 to the Edmonton Oilers. With Toronto’s loss last night, the B’s are in second place in the Atlantic Division, two points ahead of the Maple Leafs with three games in hand.
While it might be a stretch to say the Bruins expect to win every night, there is a quiet confidence building in the room.
“I’ve been part of a lot of good teams and good stretches like that, but I’m just impressed by the way that everyone’s contributing,” said Bergeron, whose second-period goal stood up as the game-winner. “One night it’s going to be one line, the next, someone else will step up and get it done for us. Same with the back end or in net. It’s doesn’t matter whose back there. Depth is something that’s really important in this league, and we have that right now. But we always talk about not getting too high or too low, so we have to stay humble and play the right way and stay the course and play hard. That’s how we’re winning games right now.”
The teams traded goals in the first period, and each came directly off a faceoff. The first one was the result of a terrific play by the B’s, the second one a not-soterrific play by the B’s.
The Bruins got on the board first at 8:19 when Riley Nash beat John Tavares cleanly on a faceoff at the left dot, drawing the puck back to Heinen at the top of the circle. Heinen snapped a perfect shot that beat New York goalie Jaroslav Halak (33 saves) just inside the post for the rookie’s 10th goal.
The 1-0 lead lasted all of 1:13. Bergeron beat Mathew Barzal cleanly on a defensive-zone draw, pulling the puck back to Brandon Carlo. When Carlo tried to push the puck behind the net on his backhand and follow it, he whiffed. The puck sat there for an opportunistic Jordan Eberle, who was able to circle the top of the crease and beat Rask with a couple of moves to pull New York even.
It was the first time the line of Bergeron, Marchand and David Pastrnak was on the ice for a 5-on-5 goal against.
“We should have lost the draw, maybe we would have been better off,” coach Bruce Cassidy said jokingly. “Well, what are you going to do? It’s going to happen sooner or later.”
Bergeron put the B’s back in front to stay in the middle of the second period on one of those plays on which he seemed to be a half-step ahead of everyone else on the ice. From low on the left side, Bergeron tried to feed Marchand in the slot, but the puck deflected up in the air and dropped down on the right side of the net. Bergeron had made his way behind the net to the right side and banged home the goal off an unsuspecting Halak’s right pad at 8:28.
By then the B’s had started to dominate — they out-shot the Islanders by a 29-14 margin in the last two periods — but it wasn’t until Marchand scored at 9:08 of the third that the insurance goal came about. Pastrnak made a great play at the New York blue line to strip Cal Clutterbuck of the puck, then set up Marchand for the finish of a 2-on-1 break.
“A great play,” Cassidy said. “(Pastrnak) has the ability to freeze guys. That pass he makes with a sort of toe-draggish move where it looks like he’s going to shoot . . . he had some good looks and chances tonight. I was very pleased that he made that play, the right time to make. It was a big goal for us.”
Fittingly, the fourth line, a forechecking menace all night, sealed the win late, first with Schaller’s putback of a rebound of a Sean Kuraly shot and then an Acciari empty-netter.
“When we play like that as a group, when we have all four lines rolling,” Marchand said, “it’s tough to play against us.”