Well, this is it. The Bruins head to Nassau Coliseum Wednesday night hoping to avoid elimination and bring the series back to Boston for a Game 7 on Friday.
If you're a Bruins fan looking for a reason to be optimistic, then it's worth remembering that in 2019 they faced elimination in a Game 6 on the road twice and won both times (first round at Toronto, Stanley Cup Final at St. Louis). That team also closed out Columbus with a Game 6 road win.
That said, while the Bruins can draw on those experiences, 2021 is not 2019. So, here are six things Boston will need to do on the ice to win Game 6 against the Islanders.
1. Get great goaltending… from whoever starts
Talk about pressure. Bruce Cassidy and goalie coach Bob Essensa are under pressure to get this decision right as they weigh starting a banged-up but experienced Tuukka Rask or a healthy but inexperienced Jeremy Swayman.
If Rask starts, he'll be under pressure to show he's healthy enough to, A) make it through the whole game after getting pulled before the third period in Game 5, and B) perform at a higher level than he did on Monday, when he surrendered four goals on 16 shots.
If Swayman starts, he'll face the pressure of making his first career playoff start in an elimination game in a hostile road environment.
Semyon Varlamov has been great for the Islanders, going 3-1 with a .936 save percentage in this series. The overtime winner he gave up to Brad Marchand in Game 3 has been his only real blemish.
The Bruins should expect that Varlamov is going to be great again Wednesday, and that means they'll need their goalie -- whoever it is -- to match him. That means not just making the saves they're supposed to make, but probably a few on high-danger chances as well.
(UPDATE: Cassidy announced after Wednesday's morning skate that Rask will start Game 6.)
2. Start fast again
The Bruins came out flying in Game 5 and absolutely dominated for about the first 18 minutes, with it taking a bad call against Sean Kuraly and an ensuing Islanders power-play goal to break their momentum.
The Bruins have shown in this series that they are capable of dominating the Islanders at five-on-five when they're on their game, and there's no excuse for them to not be on their game from the start facing elimination.
Taking control early could go a long way toward quieting the Coliseum crowd, and it could be even more important if Swayman starts. While Swayman might be capable of handling an early onslaught if the Bruins start slow, you'd really prefer to ease him in by being the team on the front foot.
The Bruins have scored first in each of the last four games, with three of those opening goals coming within the first six minutes of the game. Which brings us to the next point…
3. Extend the lead if they get it
While the Bruins have taken a 1-0 lead in four straight games, they have yet to take a 2-0 lead and have not had a two-goal lead at any point since the third period of Game 1.
They have certainly had chances to do more damage early. David Pastrnak missed an empty net in the first period of Game 4, and Brad Marchand did the same in Game 5. A bonus power play right after taking a 1-0 lead in Game 4 also went to waste, with the Bruins not even registering a single shot on goal.
The Islanders have mastered the art of "bend but don't break" when they're getting outplayed, but the Bruins have to show a little more killer instinct and make the Islanders pay for those stretches with more than just one goal at a time. The Islanders have shown they can come back from a goal down; the Bruins might want to make them prove they can come back from multiple goals down.
4. Ignore the officiating
Yes, the officiating was horrible in Game 5. Yes, it hurt the Bruins more than the Islanders. Yes, Cassidy had every right to pay $25,000 to say so publicly.
Maybe the Bruins will get more calls in their favor in Game 6 as a result. Maybe they won't.
It shouldn't matter. If the Bruins go into Game 6 thinking they need this or that from the refs, or officiating at all factors into their mindset as they hit the ice, they're in trouble.
Just go out and play. As Cassidy himself said in the middle of all those expensive words, control what you can control. If there's another bad call or missed call at some point, play through it. Great teams fight through adversity. Weak ones let it derail them.
Oh, and if a Bruin does end up in the box…
5. Be way better on the penalty kill
After allowing the Islanders to go 3-for-6 on the power play in Games 1 and 2, it appeared the Bruins penalty kill had turned the corner with a 5-for-5 showing in Games 3 and 4.
Then came a disastrous Game 5. The Islanders scored on each of their first three power plays Monday night, and did so on just four shots on goal.
Two were on shots that Rask at least had a chance to stop, but Mathew Barzal and Jordan Eberle still had far too much time to walk in and pick their spot on those.
The other came when a Josh Bailey pass across the front deflected off both of Connor Clifton's skates and fell perfectly for Kyle Palmieri all alone on the doorstep. That one was reminiscent of a couple of the Islanders' power-play goals earlier in the series, as they consistently look for that low pass across the front that can create just as much chaos if it hits a stick or skate as it could if it actually reaches its destination.
Palmieri's goal also came after Sean Kuraly had the puck on his stick with a chance to clear but failed to do so, which has been another PK problem that has cropped up several times this series.
Be quicker to close on shooters as they move inside the faceoff dots, do a better job taking away those passes right across the net-front, and make sure you clear pucks when you get a chance. It sounds simple enough but is obviously easier said than done. But the Bruins have been a very good penalty-killing team all year, and they need to get back to being one in a hurry.
6. Get production from the Bergeron line vs. Pageau
We wrote about the matchup between the Bruins' top line and Jean-Gabriel Pageau heading into Game 5, with the main point being that Brad Marchand, Patrice Bergeron and David Pastrnak have dominated at five-on-five against just about every Islander not named Pageau, but have basically been played to a draw when they've had to face Pageau.
Well, it's worth updating that heading into Game 6, because that all remained true in Game 5. When Cassidy got the Bergeron line out against Brock Nelson, which was the case for most of the first half of the game, the Bruins had advantages of 9-1 in shot attempts, 5-0 in shots on goal, and 2-0 in goals in 5:31 of five-on-five ice time (per Natural Stat Trick).
But when Islanders coach Barry Trotz changed up his lines and got Pageau out against that trio more often as the game went on, the Bruins' advantages dropped to 6-5 in attempts and 2-1 in shots on goal with no goals either way in 5:37.
With the Islanders back on home ice with last change, Trotz is going to get Pageau out against the Bergeron line as much as possible. With the Bruins struggling to find much offense outside of their top two lines, Marchand, Bergeron and Pastrnak need to do more than break even in this matchup. They need to find a way to still create chances, and they need to bury one or two.
