Bruins Fail to Ever Show Up, Lose 4-0 to the Worst Team in the Eastern Conference (Islanders)

If you are a Bruins (23-19-5) fan (and I assume that you are friend since you're reading this), it is no-show performances like today vs. the Islanders (17-17-8) at TD Garden that drive you crazy and make you pull your hair out (if you still have any left). For the second time this season, Boston lost to New York and it was truly pathetic this time around as they were blanked 4-0. Thomas Greiss (32 saves) recorded his first shutout of this campaign (New York's 1st in franchise history here) and it's not like he even had to work to hard to get it. Conversely, Tuukka Rask (12 saves, 3 goals allowed) gave up a really weak goal and was benched after the second period was over with his team trailing 3-0.

Three goals scored has been the magic number for the Islanders this season because they are 16-4-2 when they score 3+ and 1-13-6 when they score two or less. If you were taking a nap on Martin Luther King Day, you certainly didn't wake up during the beyond dull first period (0-0 with 10 total shots on goal). New York's fourth line carried them (it was that special kind of forgettable occasion) as Nikolay Kulemin scored two goals, Casey Cizikas had two assists and Jason Chimera added a goal and assist. Cizikas was a game-high +3 while Patrice Bergeron, Torey Krug, Brad Marchand and David Pastrnak were all a game-low -3.

New York scored three goals in a span of 5:20 late in the second period. Kulemin scored out front after he was left all alone with Rask. Cizikas and Chimera assisted on Kulemin's sixth goal of the season. Josh Bailey received an absolute gift when he threw the puck at the net and Rask let it sneak under his pads at 15:00. Bailey's sixth goal of the season was assisted by Anders Lee and Adam Pelech. The beating only got worse as Rask stuffed Cizikas on a breakaway only to see him pass it to Kulemin for a one-timer at 18:38. By that point, you knew that the Bruins would not recover on this day from a 3-0 hole even against what coming into the contest had been the worst team in the Eastern Conference.

The Islanders proved that their 4-2 victory here on Dec. 23, 2016 was no fluke as Chimera got a shorthanded breakaway at 12:00 and blasted the puck by Boston's backup goaltender Zane McIntyre (11 saves). Mercifully they meet one more time this season, except it is in Brooklyn. Chimera's eighth goal of the season came in the game where Boston pulled its goalie for the fourth time in 2016-17 (obviously they are 0-4-0 in said tilts). All that was left for the family oriented holiday crowd to do (well the ones that stuck around to the bitter end) was to boo the B's off the ice at the final whistle.

With the one-sided loss, Boston fell back below .500 at the Garden (10-11-0) this season and dropped their first matinee (5-1-0). They are at Detroit (18-19-6) on Wednesday (8, NBC Sports) before they host Chicago (27-14-5) in an extremely rare Friday night matchup (7, NESN). The Bruins are 13-8-5 on the road and the Red Wings currently tied with the Islanders for last-place in the East so they are a disaster. If Detroit was coming here, I'd say that was bad news for the home team but since the road-loving B's are going to Motown, I like their chances much better.

Tweet

Ugh, the Bruins Continue to Pathetically Fold at TD Garden Against the NHL's Worst Teams

Question: how many last-place teams can come into TD Garden in a short amount of time and all leave here with wins? Answer: three (Colorado, Toronto and Islanders). Tonight, Boston (17-14-3) spotted New York (12-14-6) a 3-0 lead in the second period before they finally decided to show a pulse in the third period. By that time it was too late as the Islanders snapped a five-game losing streak (0-4-1) to take the 4-2 decision. It was a nice homecoming for two former Bruins defensemen: Dennis Seidenberg (playing in his first game back in Boston since signing with NY in September) and Johnny Boychuk were both a game-high +2.

Tuukka Rask (16-6-3) has been stellar all season so I guess he was due for an off-night of sorts. He was victimized by two fluky goals and ended up getting pulled for the first time since April 3, 2015 (at Chicago). He finished with 10 saves and three goals allowed. Anton Khudobin made 15 saves in his appearance that began at 13:42 of the second period. He actually picked up his first career NHL point (an assist) but he allowed an Islanders power play goal in the third period that effectively closed the curtain on this one. New York goaltender Thomas Greiss (7-5-0) made a career-high 48 saves as Boston had a season-high 50 shots on goal (95 shot attempts!).

The B's hadn't played since Sunday afternoon's 1-0 win vs. LA, so they were sitting around at home since then and thus there really is no valid excuse for coming out so slow once again. Rask and Brad Marchand ran into each other behind Boston's net, allowing Anders Lee to knock in an early Christmas present at 3:05 of the first period. Lee's team-leading 11th goal of the season was unassisted. Another rare mistake happened a few moments later as Patrice Bergeron got caught up ice, leaving New York with a 3-on-1. Thomas Hickey beat Rask glove-side with a shot at 5:40 for a 2-0 lead. Josh Bailey and Lee had the assists on Hickey's tally.

Boston's offense had two near misses in the second period as Patrice Bergeron and Austin Czarnik each hit the crossbar in quick succession. New York took a commanding 3-0 lead at 6:18 on yet another bizarre strike. Boychuk dumped the puck in Boston's zone, it bounced off the end boards (and eluded Kevan Miller's stick) before Rask got handcuffed by it on the goal-line. Nikolay Kulemin was there to smack it in for his fourth goal of the season.

As we all predicted, Bruins rookie Anton Blidh sparked the comeback attempt when his centering pass intended for goal-machine Jimmy Hayes deflected by Greiss off of Islanders defenseman Nick Leddy's skate. The first goal of Blidh's NHL career was assisted by Brandon Carlo and Khudobin just 3:04 into the third. After rightfully booing the Bruins off the ice to end the second, the Garden crowd finally had something to cheer about and they really got loud for a few minutes after Dominic Moore tipped in Zdeno Chara's shot from the point at 7:12. Moore's eighth goal of the season was also assisted by Hayes (his 1st helper of the season).

New York head coach Jack Capuano (a Rhode Islander) sensed his team falling apart and smartly took his timeout to settle them down. It worked as they were able to hold off the Bruins and get the insurance goal they needed when Lee received another easy tap-in at 13:02. Khudobin lost the puck in his pads with the assists going to Bailey and Leddy. Boston ended up outshooting New York 23-9 in the third. It seemed like they had a power play (a good one though, not theirs) for almost the entire 20 minutes and they put tons of pressure on the Isles but they never completely cracked like you hoped that they would.

The good news for Boston is that they get to go on the road where they are much better (9-5-3) than at the Garden (8-9-0) so far in 2016-17. The B's are in Florida (15-13-5) on Thursday (7:30, NESN) before they wrap up things (sorry) before a brief Christmas break (Dec. 24-26) on Friday (7:30, NESN) in Carolina (13-11-7). Boston is clinging to third-place in the Atlantic Division, two points ahead of both the Lightning (16-14-3) and Panthers. Needless to say, Christmas will be much more enjoyable for the entire team if they can get three or four points on their mini-Southern road trip.

Tweet

B's Finally Get Back to .500 Mark (16-16-5) at TD Garden with 3-1 Win/Season Sweep of the Isles

For the first time in 2016 and only the second time this season (Dec. 29 they were 9-9-2 after smoking Ottawa 7-3), your Bruins (39-23-8) are .500 at TD Garden (16-16-5). This afternoon, they beat the Islanders (37-21-8) 3-1 to sweep the three-game season series and at least temporarily go three points ahead of the Panthers (who host the Flyers tonight) and Lightning for first-place in the Atlantic Division.

David Pastrnak is by far Boston's most important young player so it's certainly a major positive to see him healthy and thriving at the NHL level in his somewhat bumpy second season. He scored two goals while Loui Eriksson added three points (1 goal, 2 assists) as the B's never trailed and scored a goal in each frame to beat New York. Tuukka Rask (25 saves) also improved to 7-1-1 in his last nine decisions. Eriksson opened the scoring with a power-play goal at 18:26 of the first period. Boston took advantage of the only power play for either side (the 4th time this season that they haven't allowed a single PP) as Eriksson wrapped around Islanders goaltender Thomas Greiss (28 saves) for his 26th goal of the season, assisted by Ryan Spooner and Torey Krug.

Superstar John Tavares tied it for New York at 10:48 of the second period with a sweet backhander. His 26th goal of the season was assisted by Kyle Okposo (after David Krejci turned the puck over behind Boston's net) and it was also Tavares' 200th career NHL goal. The Black and Gold used a late strike in the second period to take the lead for good and go into the third up 2-1. Krejci displayed great patience to hold onto the puck for a while in New York's zone before he found Pastrnak for a sweet one-timer at 19:51. Eriksson had the second assist on Pastrnak's 11th goal of the season.

New York outshot Boston 12-11 in the second period and they ramped that up to 9-6 in the third but Rask and the Bruins' defense got the job done. Of course, it helped that the Islanders were kind of sloppy with the puck all day (19-13 giveaways in their favor). It looked like it would end 2-1 with Boston on top or maybe 3-1 via a late empty netter but Pastrnak took away any doubt with a slap shot at 17:26 that Greiss got a piece of but couldn't stop. Eriksson had the lone assist by banking the puck up the boards to Boston's promising talent.

The B's get two days off for the first time in over month and they'll need it since the dreaded three-game trip to California awaits them next week. Boston is at San Jose (37-24-6) on Tuesday (10, NESN), at Anaheim (37-21-9) on Friday (10, NESN) and at LA (40-22-4) on Saturday (10:30, NESN). All three of those teams are quality sides that will be in the always loaded Western Conference playoffs this spring (they are the top-3 teams in the Pacific Division) and each came to Boston earlier this season and beat the Bruins handily. For that reason alone, the road warrior B's (23-7-3 on the road) won't be lacking for motivation this next week as the regular season winds down. They only have 12 games left and eight of them are on the road, the next home game isn't until March 24 vs. Florida (their only remaining home game in March).

Tweet

Bruins Blank Penguins 2-0 For Their Fifth Straight Win (Making Them 8-1-1 in The Last 10 Games)

Remember a few short weeks ago when even the biggest Bruins honk felt like they were going nowhere for the rest of this ill-fated season? My how things have changed since today's 2-0 win by Boston (36-22-10) at CONSOL Energy Center vs. Pittsburgh (39-19-10) was their fifth straight victory (best current streak in the NHL) and left them 8-1-1 in their last 10 games (tied with Rangers for best mark). The Bruins are now tied with the Capitals for seventh-place (82 points) in the Eastern Conference and only five points behind the Red Wings (37-19-11) who are also faltering at this most important time.

Sure the B's caught two enormous breaks since Sidney Crosby was in pregame warmups but didn't suit up because of an undisclosed injury while Evgeni Malkin played a grand total of five shifts before leaving with a mysterious injury of his own. Chris Kelly had hit him which seemed to cause the injury but it was a clean, routine play and nothing dirty by any means. Still, the Bruins wouldn't have taken advantage of that earlier in the season so it was nice to see them continue to get the job done in any number of ways. Once again, they rode Tuukka Rask (30 saves; 3rd shutout of the season) who has been one of the league's best over the last month-plus.

The other thing that went Boston's way happened before the game began as the Penguins started backup goaltender Thomas Greiss (28 saves) in order to rest Marc-Andre Fleury for a matchup vs. Detroit on Sunday. Greiss was fine except that he allowed a rather soft goal to Milan Lucic at 9:53 of the first period. David Pastrnak and Dougie Hamilton assisted on Lucic's low wrist shot that should have been stopped but went in for his 15th goal of the season.

Really not that much else happened the rest of the way which was fine with the Bruins. Boston's power play was 0 for 4 but they held Pittsburgh to 0 for 3 so that was basically a draw. Captain Zdeno Chara clinched it for Boston with a rink-long empty-netter when there were 38 seconds left in regulation. Gregory Campbell assisted on Chara's seventh goal of the season which made it 2-0 for the visitors.

Ironically enough, the B's are in DC tomorrow night (7:30, NBCSN) to face the Capitals (36-23-10). Boston has played one less game than Washington so a win against them on Sunday would give them some extra space. It is the second leg of a back-to-back (when you'd normally play the backup goalie) but I believe that Rask will make another start since the game is so important in the Wild Card standings.

Tweet