Boston Bruins

Game 29 Live Blog: New York Islanders @ Boston Bruins

Published

3 years ago

March 25, 2021

BOSTON – Here are five thoughts from the first period with the Boston Bruins leading the New York Islanders by a 2-0 score after 20 minutes of play at a TD Garden fully backed by (roughly) 2,200 raucous fans.

Who could have guessed it would be Karson Kuhlman and Steve Kampfer powering the offense in the first game back with fans? Both Boston Bruins players scored their first goals of the season by simply putting pucks on net with Charlie Coyle providing a big screen in front of the net. Kuhlman’s looked like it might have deflected off a defender’s stick and rocketed up to the top corner while Kampfer just stepped into a bullet on the PP off a nice feed from Charlie McAvoy.

Patrice Bergeron was running hot and giving Wes McCauley an earful at the end of the first period after the refs missed a Casey Cizikas high stick to his face on Boston’s final PP possession. A call there would have given the Bruins a 5-on-3 advantage in a game where they were up 2-0, but the uncalled high stick was nasty enough to draw blood on the Bruins captain. Not sure how they missed this:

Heres the no call on Patrice Bergeron. He had every right to give McCauley an earful at the end of the period. When Patrice Bergeron rips you, you know you deserved it pic.twitter.com/rBwn6LHJnd

— Joe Haggerty (@HackswithHaggs) March 25, 2021

Man, the energy is palpable at TD Garden even when it’s just a couple thousand fans in the building. It was a loud “Let’s Go Bruins!” chant breaking out just 10 seconds into the game that let everybody know things are back to quasi-normal again. What a good feeling.

Two shots on net for Karson Kuhlman to go along with the goal, and the third line of Kuhlman, Charlie Coyle and Anders Bjork has been a handful for the Islanders defense tonight. I wouldn’t expect that to be sustainable given the personnel, but it’s something the Bruins can ride for a night either way.