BOSTON — With the Bruins’ big win against Tampa Bay on Thursday and Toronto coming to town on Tuesday, Saturday’s matinee against the New York Islanders had all the makings of a trap game.
But the B’s, apparently, are beyond such pedestrian hockey pitfalls these days.
Despite the fact the Islanders — 7-1-1 in the previous nine — were looking a lot closer to the team that vanquished the home team in six games last spring, the Bruins made road kill out of them at TD Garden. Six different players hit the scoresheet and the Bruins used a four-goal second period to rout the Islanders for a convincing 6-3 win. Five Bruins recorded multi-point games as the team nabbed its seventh win in eight games.
Taylor Hall and Brad Marchand each had a goal and two assists to lead the way.
The Bruins took a 2-1 lead into the first intermission, though they couldn’t have felt great when the green light went on.
Craig Smith gave the Bruins a 1-0 lead at 4:03. Charlie Coyle carried the puck down along the right side and absolutely steamrolled big Adam Pelech, regaining the puck on the other side of the wreckage. From behind the net, Coyle sent a pass out high to Brandon Carlo. Carlo’s wide shot bounced off the end boards and right onto Smith’s stick for his 15th of the year.
That seemed to wake up the Islanders, who then started to spend more time in the Bruins zone. It appeared they had evened it up when Kyle Palmieri deflected Noah Dobson’s high shot past Linus Ullmark. Upon video challenge, it was ruled too high and the goal came off the board.
The Bruins eventually started to tilt the ice the other way and earned a couple of power plays. On the first one, they pelted Semyon Varlamov with a handful of in-tight shots but could not beat him. But on the second power play, all it took was one, as Hall redirected a Charlie McAvoy feed past Varlamov with 34 seconds left in the period.
But the Bruins got careless. An unforced icing brought the draw back in their zone and Anders Lee won the faceoff back to old friend Zdeno Chara, who very well may have been playing his last game at TD Garden. Chara’s shot dinged the crossbar and the rebound dropped down to Brock Nelson for an easy backhand goal.
As frustrating as that goal may have been, it wasn’t a momentum-changer, as the Bruins scored two quick goals to start the second period.
David Pastrnak scored first at 2:13. Hall won a puck battle in the left corner and fed Erik Haula, whose shot Varlamov stopped but the rebound came out to Pastrnak for his 37th goal of the season.
Marchand made it 4-1 at 3:56. Marchand crashed into two Islanders behind the net, essentially taking them out of the play. He popped up quickly to take a loose puck off the stick of Patrice Bergeron — returning after a four-game absence (elbow infection) — circled into the slot and scored his 28th.
Lee scored on a power play at 5:12, but the Bruins kept on coming.
Haula finished off a pretty rush with his ninth goal of the year at 14:33. Hall gained the zone and dished to Pastrnak on his right. The sniper, with four goals in his last two games, zipped it right to Haula on the left side for another easy goal. It was Haula’s seventh point in three games.
Jake DeBrusk stretched it to 6-2 at 18:18 when his centering pass went off a stick in front and the Bruins were on their way.
Zach Parise scored a power-play goal with 5:17 left in the third but it was too little, too late.
