Recap: Bruins fall short to Islanders, 2-1

The Bruins couldn’t recover from an early two-goal deficit.

The Boston Bruins fell 2-1 to the New York Islanders on Thursday night at the TD Garden as the team came up short to bounce back from a two-goal hole.

With the loss, the Bruins are now on a five-game winless streak. The Bruins may have also suffered a different type of loss as well as Matt Poitras left the game in the second with a lower-body injury.

Despite outshooting the Islanders 15-6 in the first frame, Alexander Romanov out of the penalty box beat Jeremy Swayman on a 2-on-1. The goal came on only the Islanders’ third shot on net.

After a strong offensive with Pavel Zacha breaking away with the puck after he forced a turnover, play came right back down the other end for the Islanders to take a two-goal lead thanks to Kyle Palmieri.

Again, the Bruins found themselves in the same boat, getting shots through to challenge Isles’ goaltender Ilya Sorokin, but they were met with a hot netminder.

“We did a better job of getting in front of him after the first, but he was really good tonight,” Interim head coach Joe Sacco said.

The Bruins encountered some bad luck in the final minutes of the second period. Brock Nelson shoved Poitras near the Islanders bench for Poitras to get caught in an open-bench door which back-up goaltender Jakub Sharek had opened simultaneously. He did not return to the game.

David Pastrnak cut the Bruins’ deficit in half midway through the third period with a hard-angled shot that hit an Islanders’ defenseman and bounced into the net past Sorokin. The goal extended his point streak to 16 games.

The Bruins had their fair share of chances and Swayman also made a few big saves to keep it a one-goal game, but they couldn’t completely push back to change the outcome of this one.

“Every line played a pretty good game,” Pastrnak said. “Unfortunately we got down 2-0 against a team like the Islanders. Any time they get the lead, they lock it in and they are really good at it and they don’t give you much.”

Here are the game’s highlights:

First period:

Fresh out of the box and on a 2-on-1 with Jean-Gabriel Pageau, Alexander Romanov threw a wrist shot top shelf over Jeremy Swayman’s glove at 16:11 of the first period. 1-0 Islanders.

Second period:

Right after Pavel Zacha stole the puck at the Bruins’ blue line to skate in on Ilya Sorokin and got a chance, the play came right back down the other end. Kyle Palmieri picked up the rebound from Brock Nelson’s shot at 4:21 of the second period. 2-0 Islanders.

Third period:

David Pastrnak shot the puck toward net from a hard angle low from outside the right circle. The puck hit off defenseman Tony DeAngelo and past Sorokin. Final score: 2-1 Islanders.

Game notes

• Well, it’s another game and the Bruins get further away from a wild card spot. The race is still tight and only a few points separate six teams. Those teams range from 59 to 62 points with the Bruins, New York Rangers and Ottawa Senators all at 62 points.
• There were definitely some problems tonight and mistakes which led a Bruins team that had plenty of chances to come up short. It didn’t help, for one thing, that the Islanders scored twice on just eight shots on net.
• But Sacco said postgame that he like seeing his team have five or six scoring opportunities before the Islanders’ first goal. Sacco said Sorokin was the difference in the game, stopping quality chances. Overall, Sacco said he felt this game was a “good one for our group” and one that they could build on.
• Matt Poitras left the game with a lower-body injury after being hit by Brock Nelson and into an open bench door, which back-up goaltender Jakub Sharek opened. Postgame, Sacco did not have an update on Poitras.

• After the game, Pastrnak and Nikita Zadorov weighed in on the incident, commenting on the open-bench door and responsibilities as a player to prevent that type of situation. “As a player, you make sure the door is always closed,” Pastrnak said. “You don’t want to see that, and you definitely don’t want to see a guy push him into the door.”
• “I mean, was a backup goalie to open the door?,” Zadorov said about what happened. “You’ve got to be a little bit more patient up there. It’s just an unlucky play to see a young guy go down, especially, he’s been playing really well for us. I don’t know what they’re gonna do, but we have to hold the guys to step up, step up and take his spot and contribute as well.”
• Pastrnak’s point streak now stands at 16 games, hitting a career high. The goal also gave him 800 career points. “He’s on another level and it’s impressive to watch him every night,” Marchand said postgame. “He just creates so much for this group and he’s leading the charge right now.”
• Marchand talked about the adversity the team is facing at this point in the season, but how the Bruins are looking to come out the other side.

“It hasn’t been the season that we’ve wanted and we haven’t had the success that we would have liked this time of the year,” Marchand said. “But the good thing is that we’re coming together over it. At the end of the day, we may not achieve what we hope to this year, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t build for something greater and bring it back next year.

“We’re going to work every single day to continue to improve and build our game,” Marchand added. “We’re going to claw and fight every single day to get into the playoffs here. It’s a dog fight.”

• The Bruins will head on the road for back-to-back games this weekend. Up first, the Bruins will travel to Pittsburgh to face the Penguins at 3 p.m.