Let’s start with a positive: The Islanders weren’t passively awful, as they had been the night before.
But even with a strong start, the Islanders certainly weren’t good enough on Friday night as they were swept in a two-game series in Boston. Their continued power-play failures played a large role.
The Bruins scored two goals in a span of 50 seconds bridging the first and second periods and beat the struggling Islanders, 3-0, before a crowd of 2,191 at TD Garden.
An inept first period had led to Thursday’s 4-1 loss in Boston that left Barry Trotz deeming his team’s effort "unacceptable."
Still, the Islanders (27-13-4) remained two points behind the first-place Capitals in the East Division and one point ahead of the third-place Penguins. They conclude this three-game road trip against the Flyers on Sunday.
Ilya Sorokin, making his first start against the Bruins after Semyon Varlamov started the first six games this season, stopped 25 shots. Boston’s Jeremy Swayman made 25 saves for his first career shutout in his fifth game.
The Islanders were without Josh Bailey and Cal Clutterbuck after the two forwards were hurt in Thursday’s game, with Trotz inserting Michael Dal Colle and Leo Komarov.
Trotz also altered his power-play units, using defensemen Nick Leddy and Ryan Pulock with Mathew Barzal, Jordan Eberle and Brock Nelson. Defenseman Noah Dobson quarterbacked the other unit with Kyle Palmieri, Anthony Beauvillier, Oliver Wahlstrom and Jean-Gabriel Pageau. Trotz later shifted Wahlstrom to the shooter’s spot on Barzal’s unit for Pulock.
Yet the power play — the focus of two practices before departing for Boston — went 0 for 5 with nine shots.
It prevented the Islanders from rallying in the third period.
The Islanders opened with one minute, seven seconds left on Sean Kuraly’s delay of game. The Islanders didn’t get off a shot on goal.
They got two after Brad Marchand slashed Wahlstrom at 3:10. And the Islanders had just one shot after Kuraly was called for boarding Dobson at 9:55 while Sorokin had to turn aside Patrice Bergeron’s two-on-one shorthanded attempt.
The Islanders’ first period was light-years better than the first 20 minutes on Thursday, when they were outshot, 23-7, and outchanced, 33-11.
Yet it could have been just as disheartening after David Pastrnak gave the Bruins a 1-0 lead with 2.4 seconds remaining. Defenseman Scott Mayfield went to confront Bruins defenseman Mike Reilly below the goal line, leaving the lethal Pastrnak open in front of the crease.
Then, Taylor Hall, with his second goal in two games against the Islanders for his first two with the Bruins, made it 2-0 just 47 seconds into the second period. He got to the crease to beat Sorokin off David Krejci’s feed.
The Bruins built off that early momentum to take 10 of the first 11 shots in the second period.
Yet other than Pastrnak’s goal, the Islanders dominated the opening period, with Swayman making 10 saves.
Nelson shot high on an open look at the net just 52 seconds in, then sprung Dal Colle to the crease at 3:30, with Swayman making a blocker save. Swayman then made an arm save on Pulock’s chance from the right circle at 4:58 and denied both Beauvillier and Nelson on a two-on-one short-handed rush at 8:18. He also denied Palmieri on a two-on-one chance at 18:38 of the second period. Beauvillier had a chance for a partial breakaway at 5:07 of the second period after taking the puck from Charlie McAvoy, but the defenseman chased him down and prevented him from getting off a shot.
Curtis Lazar added an empty-net goal at 18:48 of the third period.
