Boston Bruins: One of Many Bad Trends vs. Islanders

Wednesday night, the Boston Bruins were eliminated from the Stanley Cup playoffs with a 6-2 loss in Game 6 to the New York Islanders.

Where the Islanders a better team? Over five of the last six games, they were, but when it mattered the most, the Isles took advantage of their opportunities, while the Bruins failed to capitalize on many of their following their 5-2 Game 1 victory. New York would win four of the final five games of the best-of-seven series.

They won three of the four games on the strength of strong second periods.

Bruins were badly outplayed in the second period in three of the final four games.

Falling behind the Islanders is not something that you want to do very much of and unfortunately for the Black and Gold, they were trailing in most games following Game 1. Chasing goals on New York goalie Semyon Varlamov is not something that was going to get the Bruins into the semifinals against the Tampa Bay Lightning.

In Game 2, the Isles scored three-second period goals on their way to a 4-3 overtime victory, and then in Game 5 Monday night, they again scored three goals, two on the power play, to build what ended up too much of a deficit for Boston to come back from in a pivotal 5-4 loss. The second-ranked penalty kill which carried the Bruins through the regular season struggled against the Isles.

Wednesday night, the door completely caved in on the Bruins in the middle period as three goals from the Islanders, basically ended any hopes of Boston when they broke open a 1-1 game after 20 minutes with three more second-period goals, all from below the dots, for a 4-1 lead.

There were many more factors as to why the Bruins lost the series, some of which we will dive into in the coming days, but chasing goals on the Islanders is not something you want to be doing too much of. Sooner or later, it will catch up with you and it caught up to the Bruins in three of the four games they lost with big second periods for the Isles.