The Boston Bruins hit the road to take on the New York Islanders. The Bruins were coming into the game suffering a shutout loss to the Vancouver Canucks. The Islanders have gone 4-3-3 in their last 10 games and were also coming off a loss. The Bruins emerged victorious due to a strong third period.
Game Recap
First Period
It did not take long and the Bruins drew first blood. After winning the faceoff, captain Brad Marchand fired a shot from the faceoff circle. It was good to see the Bruins score a five-on-five because it is something they’ve struggled with.
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The Marchand show continued, and the Bruins built a bigger lead. After seeing winger Justin Brazeau bumped off the puck, Marchand corralled the puck and roofed a shot short side over Ilya Sorokin. This forced Islanders head coach Patrick Roy to call a timeout and settle down his team, which they responded to. After poor puck management, Maxim Tsyplakov cut the deficit to one goal.
Second Period
The Islanders were down 2-1 and managed to get the tying goal. After the puck hopped over the stick of Mason Lohrei, Brock Nelson tied the game. Moments later, the Bruins retook the lead. After maintaining possession in the zone, Pavel Zacha fed a pass to Morgan Geekie who got the better of Sorokin. Much like the first period, Nelson capped off his second goal of the game, which tied things up. With eight seconds to go in the second period, Nelson ripped a shot short side to set up a pivotal third period.
This was an extremely low event period on both sides. Despite the flurry of goals, the expected goals margin to this point was 1.34-1.04 in favor of the Islanders.
Third Period
It took until the midway point of the period for the Bruins to regain the lead. A shot near the blue line saw Zacha deflect the puck past Sorokin. Zacha maintained a good body position and kept his stick free to get that goal. Moments later, Zacha got his second of the period after firing a backhand shot past the glove of Sorokin. After the Bruins killed a Nikita Zadorov penalty, he came out of the box and landed the dagger with an empty net goal. The Bruins won the game 6-3 and Joonas Korpisalo is now 5-2–1 on the season.
