Bring on the Islanders. The Bruins’ second-round matchup is now set after New York finished off the Penguins with a 5-3 win in Game 6 Wednesday night.
The NHL has not yet announced when Bruins-Islanders will begin, but Games 1 and 2 will be at TD Garden when it does. Our best guess would be Saturday night, as there are Celtics games Friday and Sunday night to work around, but that’s just a guess for now. (UPDATE: Game 1 is indeed now officially set for Saturday night.)
This will be the first time the Bruins and Islanders have met in the playoffs since the 1983 Prince of Wales Conference finals, which the Islanders won in six games en route to a fourth straight Stanley Cup.
Here are five early thoughts on the matchup:
1. Bruins overcame their boogeyman in regular-season series
The Bruins could not solve the Islanders through the first two and a half months of this season, as Boston lost each of the first five meetings between the two. A few were close -- there was a 1-0 loss, an overtime loss and a shootout loss -- and one was an embarrassing 7-2 blowout.
It looked for a while like the Islanders were both the best team in the division and the one that would be the worst matchup for the Bruins in the playoffs.
But then the Bruins flipped the script over the final month of the season, winning their final three games against the Islanders. They won back-to-back games in decisive fashion on April 15 and 16 by a combined score of 7-1, then won 3-2 in overtime on May 10 on this Taylor Hall winner:
One of the biggest reasons the Bruins were able to catch and pass the Islanders both in their head-to-head meetings and in the standings is because…
2. Bruins’ trade deadline acquisitions have made a much bigger impact
The Islanders were one of the first teams to make a splash before the trade deadline, acquiring Kyle Palmieri and Travis Zajac from the Devils. The Bruins wouldn’t make their big moves for a few more days, but their acquisitions of Taylor Hall, Curtis Lazar and Mike Reilly turned out to be much more impactful.
Palmieri and Zajac have not been able to replace what the Islanders lost when captain Anders Lee suffered a season-ending torn ACL in March. Palmieri had two goals and two assists in 17 regular-season games with New York; Zajac had one of each in 13 games. Palmieri did score three times in the first round, though, but Zajac was a healthy scratch until Game 6.
For the Bruins, meanwhile, Hall helped turn their second line from a question mark into one of the best lines in the NHL, registering eight goals and six assists in 16 regular-season games with Boston and then two goals and an assist in the first round. Reilly helped solidify their top four on defense and gave them some much-needed puck-moving ability, and Lazar strengthened a fourth line that had been in flux for much of the season.
From the April 12 trade deadline on, the Bruins went 12-4-1 and averaged 3.41 goals per game (sixth in the NHL in that time), while the Islanders went 5-6-3 and averaged 2.21 goals per game (29th).
3. These are two of the best defensive teams in the NHL
The one thing the Bruins and Islanders have both had pre- and post-trade deadline is strong team defense. The Islanders ranked second in the regular season with 2.23 goals against per game, while the Bruins were fourth at 2.39. The Bruins had the second-best penalty kill (86.0%); the Islanders were sixth (83.7%).
That’s not surprising, as coaches Bruce Cassidy and Barry Trotz have had their teams among the NHL’s elite defensively for years, both implementing systems that demand defensive responsibility from all 18 skaters and don’t have much room for players who take shortcuts or cheat to the offensive side of the puck.
The Islanders are led by a big, mobile top four of Ryan Pulock, Adam Pelech, Nick Leddy and Scott Mayfield that doesn’t give away easy goals. Like the Bruins, they don’t have any forward lines you can really expose in their own zone.
After some growing pains with their youth and numerous injuries for most of the season, the Bruins finally have a set top four of their own with Charlie McAvoy, Matt Grzelcyk, Brandon Carlo and Reilly. Their third pairing remains in flux with injuries to Kevan Miller and Jeremy Lauzon, but Connor Clifton played well in the first round filling in.
4. Both teams will be facing better goaltending than Round 1
A big part of both teams’ strong defenses is of course their goaltending. After being hampered by injury during the regular season, Bruins goalie Tuukka Rask was great in the first round, posting a .941 save percentage in five games.
For the Islanders, Semyon Varlamov was a Vezina Trophy candidate in the regular season, but then an injury and one bad game opened the door for rookie Ilya Sorokin to usurp him in the first round. Sorokin was very good after taking over, finishing the series with a .943 save percentage in four games.
Regardless of which New York goalie is in net in the second round (it certainly seems like it'll be Sorokin), he should be better and less mistake-prone than what the Bruins faced in the first round, when the Capitals used three different netminders. They ultimately settled on Ilya Samsonov, who was mostly pretty good but committed a costly mistake on Craig Smith’s Game 3 double-overtime winner and gave up a back-breaking goal on a stoppable shot from Patrice Bergeron in Game 5.
Islanders shooters will be seeing an even more dramatic improvement. Penguins goalie Tristan Jarry was downright horrendous in the first round, and was the biggest reason Pittsburgh lost a series in which it was otherwise often the better team. He gave up 21 goals in six games, more than a few of which came on bad rebounds and savable shots, and committed an inexcusable turnover on Josh Bailey’s Game 5 double-overtime winner.
Rask is not going to make those kinds of mistakes or give up those kinds of goals, so the Islanders are not going to have as easy a time getting their previously struggling offense going in this series.
5. It’s really going to be awesome to see and hear nearly full buildings
It’s been nearly 15 months since we’ve seen and heard a full TD Garden, and nearly two years since we’ve had that kind of atmosphere for a playoff game. We’re going to get something very close to it when the Bruins hit the ice for Game 1 against the Islanders, whenever that ends up being.
The Bruins and TD Garden announced this week that they have been approved to return to “near full capacity” beginning Saturday, when COVID restrictions are lifted across Massachusetts. While seeing and hearing the Garden at 12% capacity and then 25% has been pretty special after so long with no fans at all, getting 17,000 or so fans is really going to be incredible.
The Islanders and Nassau Coliseum, meanwhile, have also been steadily increasing capacity, jumping up to 9,000 fans (in a 14,000-seat building) for Wednesday night’s Game 6 against Pittsburgh. It’s possible they’ll be able to add even more for Round 2.