The NHL trade deadline arrives on Friday and it’s clear the Bruins need some help.
But their performance on Long Island on Saturday night must have GM Don Sweeney wondering just how much of it this team deserves.
The B’s were thoroughly outplayed by the New York Islanders at UBS Arena and were rightly routed, 5-1, to begin March much like they started February – without a pulse. Once again, the B’s top forwards – David Pastrnak, Brad Marchand, Jake DeBrusk and Charlie Coyle – gave the team little in the way of offensive production or even extended offensive zone time.
To make matters worse, the B’s lost Pavel Zacha to a lower body injury late in the first period and he did not return. There was no immediate prognosis available.
The B‘s are clearly missing workhorse defenseman Hampus Lindholm (lower body injury), and not having Matt Grzelcyk (undisclosed injury) on Saturday didn’t help. But what ailed the B’s on Saturday was about more than missing a couple of players.
It was a non-competitive first period from the Bruins perspective, as Kyle Palmieri notched a natural hat trick in the first 12:19 for a 3-0 lead after 20 minutes. It could have been worse.
The first goal came at 3:32 when the veteran got past Mason Lohrei and sniped a lot shot past Linus Ullmark.
Then, after James van Riemsdyk took a bad and obvious holding penalty near the Islander blue line, Palmieri scored off a rebound at 5:27, just 16 seconds after van Riemsdyk took a seat in the box.
Finally, after coach Jim Montgomery juggled his lines and put Jesper Boqvist up on the left wing with Zacha and Pastrnak, the B’s looked absolutely lost in their own zone. Boqvist, perhaps believing he had help down low, let Ryan Pulock walk right down the right wing and get off a good shot that produced a big rebound off Ullmark’s left pad. With Lohrei tying up Anders Lee, Palmieri was left alone to pop home that rebound.
Had Ullmark not come up with a couple of big saves in the first, it would have been lights out. Kyle MacLean had a clean break-in after Derek Forbort, back in the lineup because of the Grzelcyk injury, committed an egregious turnover. And when the B’s, outshot 15-8 in the first, were given a chance to get back in the game with a late power play, the Islanders were the ones who had the better scoring chances.
But it took the Islanders just 46 seconds into the second period to extend the lead. After Marchand turned down a prime scoring chance in the slot to make a pass to Coyle that never connected, the Islanders came right back down the ice and scored when Ullmark and Charlie McAvoy got tangled up in the top of the crease. After McAvoy blocked a shot, Lee had an empty net for an easy goal.
The ugliness was not over. After Brandon Carlo couldn’t handle a puck behind the net and chased it up the boards, Lohrei was left to alone to cover two men in good scoring areas. Bo Horvat recovered the puck and found the open man, Brock Nelson, and he made it 5-0 at 10:24.
The B’s never had much push-back, though they did get a goal back back when Marc McLaughlin, called up for the first time this year due to an injury to Justin Brazeau, scored on a one-timer off a McAvoy pass at 14:30.
