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Talking Points: Surging Boston Bruins Overwhelm Isles In Win

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BOSTON – Here are the Talking Points from Boston’s 6-3 win over the New York Islanders on Saturday afternoon at TD Garden.

GOLD STAR: Taylor Hall continues to really find his niche with the Boston Bruins as a playmaker, net-front presence and quality player complementing the second line with David Pastrnak and Erik Haula. Hall scored a PP goal on a nice tip of a Charlie McAvoy point blast to give the Bruins a quick two-goal lead and finished with three points and a plus-2 rating in 16:13 of ice time. Hall finished with four shots on net, five shot attempts and played a strong overall game for a second line that looks playoff-ready at this point. The way they’re beginning to even cycle the puck shows they’ve got an eye on being a force in the playoffs after doing most of their damage off the rush this season.

BLACK EYE: Adam Pelech and Andy Greene both got abused defensively by the Boston Bruins and finished with dueling minus-3 ratings in a tough performance. They weren’t alone as just about everybody in an Isles uniform ended up in a minus for the game, but the two D-men had just one combined shot attempt and two hits while each of them managed almost 20 minutes of ice time in pretty invisible performances. Noah Dobson was probably the only Islanders defenseman that escaped the Saturday matinee without scorch marks from the Boston Bruins attack.

TURNING POINT: The Bruins allowed a late first period goal to the Islanders to make it a 2-1 game entering the first intermission, and at that point the door was open to let the Isles hang around in a possible trap game. But the Bruins “Hall Pass” line didn’t let that come to fruition as they rolled up their sleeves and scored a goal after cycling in the offensive zone in the kind of sequence that’s going to become important as the postseason approaches. David Pastrnak and Taylor Hall won the puck battle along the boards, got the puck to Erik Haula for the shot and then Pastrnak popped in the rebound after crashing to the front of the net.

That gave the Bruins back their two-goal lead just a couple of minutes into the second period and they were off and running.

HONORABLE MENTION: Patrice Bergeron returned to the lineup and made a tangible impact even if he only finished with one assist in a six-goal outburst for the Boston Bruins team. It was Bergeron’s presence as the bumper and face-off winner on the PP that allowed that group to have their best game in at least a week, and it was Bergeron that won 11-of-19 face-offs overall while finishing with nine shot attempts in an extremely active game. The B’s top line didn’t have a massive game, but the return of No. 37 brought balance to Boston’s attack in a way that you can easily see just how much trouble other teams are going to have containing all three forward lines on the regular.

BY THE NUMBERS: 1200 – the number of NHL games played for Patrice Bergeron as he returned to the Boston Bruins lineup on Saturday after missing the previous four games.

QUOTE TO NOTE: “Every night we expect to win. It doesn’t matter who we’re playing and it doesn’t matter where we’re playing. That’s a fun feeling.” –Boston Bruins left winger Taylor Hall on the vibe with the Boston Bruins as they improved to 14-2-1 in their last 17 games.

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