Live Blog, Game 14: Boston Bruins Vs. New York Islanders

The Bruins have their five game winning streak snapped with a 4-2 loss to the New York Islanders at Nassau Coliseum on Saturday night. We’ll have more in a bit…

Here are five thoughts from the second period with the Bruins and New York Islanders locked in a 2-2 tie score after the opening 40 minutes at the Nassau Coliseum.

• The Bruins clearly look like they don’t have their good skating legs on their second night of back-to-backs, and their third game in four days on the road and their 11^th day out of the last 14 days on the road with their last home game on Jan. 28. But they’re digging down deep and found enough to score the tying goal in the second period with the Perfection Line accounting for both scores during 5-on-5 play.

• The power play, on the other hand, is struggling for the Bruins. Interesting that the Bruins coaching staff threw the second unit on first during their first PP possession in tonight’s game. It didn’t do much to change their mojo as they didn’t generate a ton of pressure on their PP possession, and had just two shots on net on their PP chance.

• Jakub Zboril is out for the rest of the night with an upper body injury. Is this a residual effect from last night’s Jacob Trouba head shot on Zboril or did something happen tonight to knock the young defenseman out of the game? It remains to be seen, but it didn’t appear like there was any obvious problem that Zboril suffered in this game.

• Fifteen saves for Tuukka Rask in the second period as he was up to the task after the soft goal allowed in the first. He was fired up at the end of the second period punting a puck away from the crease once the buzzer had sounded for the second intermission.

• Three shots on net, six shot attempts and three hits for Nick Ritchie in that first 40 minutes as they continue to get quality play from the big man.

Here are five thoughts from the first period with the Boston Bruins trailing the New York Islanders by a 2-1 score after the opening 20 minutes at the Nassau Coliseum.

• After a pretty solid first five minutes where the Isles were forced into icing a handful of times, the Bruins defense seemed to run into a ton of difficulties. Kevan Miller made a couple of poor decisions, Jeremy Lauzon was beaten to inside position by Jean-Gabriel Pageau and Jakub Zboril was having some issues with turnovers as well. And the slot area seems to be open for the Islanders players. The Islanders ended up outshooting the Bruins 15-7 in the period as New York really caught fire in the second half of the period. The Bruins announced after the period that Zboril was out for the rest of the game with an upper body injury.

• Soft serve goal allowed by Tuukka Rask on a long distance Jordan Eberle shot from the face-off circle is the difference in this one. That’s probably the softest goal that Rask has allowed all season long and it was after some pretty consistent pressure by the Islanders in the final 10 minutes of the first period.

Rask is going to want that one back. pic.twitter.com/MvplYLh9Gc

— Conor Ryan (@ConorRyan_93) February 14, 2021

• A dominant shift by the Boston Bruins fourth line to hold the puck in the offensive zone led to Boston’s only goal as Patrice Bergeron flipped a backhanded pass to Brad Marchand rushing off the bench for the sniped wrister from the slot. It’s Marchand’s team-leading ninth goal of the season in a very strong start to the year for the Bruins left winger.

• Two shots on net and three shot attempts overall for Anders Bjork, who has looked very engaged skating with Charlie Coyle on the third line. Bjork had an excellent chance after a heavy fore-check by Nick Ritchie left a leading pass to the front of the net for the speedy Bruins winger. Bjork hasn’t scored, but he looks like he’s got his good skating legs in this one.

• Six blocked shots for the Islanders in the first period despite being outshot 15-7 means they are spilling the bucket for two points tonight. The Bruins need to match that intensity, which may be difficult at the end of a long road stretch ahead of a few days off back at home.