Boston Bruins: 5 Keys to Saturday's Matchup with New York Islanders

In light of the events on Thursday night, the Boston Bruins ought to be doubly cautioned as they enter the first installment of a three-game road trip with the New York Islanders.

Not only are the Bruins on the heels of narrowly escaping with a shootout win over the dead-last, deadbeat Columbus Blue Jackets. But the Islanders, No. 29 in the league standings and last in the Eastern Conference, just subsisted on the fruits of a hot second period to edge the Montreal Canadiens, 4-3, at Nassau Coliseum.

Lately, Boston’s incessant victories have constituted an endeavor reminiscent of Sisyphus. They will leapfrog their closest competitors into the coveted playoff portion of the conference leaderboard, only to have the likes of Ottawa or New Jersey pull even or pull back ahead.

Thursday’s upshot was ultimately a harmless lesson against letting down one’s guard as well as granting the opposition so much as a single point. Despite the Islanders’ position, the Bruins do not want to let another winnable game go beyond regulation, regardless of who prevails thereafter, when facing a conference rival.

Some of the ways they can secure a more pleasurable victory along with their first eight-game winning streak since December 2008 is assessed as follows.

Looking For Road Kill

Perhaps the five-straight instances of donning their black jerseys and skating before 17,565 supporting spectators grew subconsciously monotonous to the Bruins.

At the end of their homestand sweep, stay-at-home defenseman Adam McQuaid was the only Boston skater nabbing a point on the scoresheet. His unassisted goal effectively permitted the shootout that gave the Bruins a 2-1 decision against Columbus.

Everybody else is suddenly on or trying to avert a case of consecutive pointless outings, an altogether foreign concept since the calendar morphed to November.

But now that they have had a getaway and are virtually together on a dawn-to-dusk basis, the Bruins may have the intangible prerequisite to flipping their switch back on.

Three-strike Limit

It is worth noting that the Islanders bear a winning record on home ice at 5-4-1, attaining all five of their wins and 11 out of their 13 points at Nassau Coliseum. But aside from their first win, a 2-1 decision against Minnesota, they have not claimed a single two-point package without scoring at least four goals.

When confined to three goals or fewer, the Islanders are 1-8-3. When restricted to two tallies, they are 1-8-2.

Based on recent patterns, Tim Thomas figures to get the nod in net for the Bruins on Saturday. Thomas has yet to authorize more than three goals in a single start.

See where this is going?

DiPietro Revival?

Rick DiPietro has made only four legitimate appearances in New York’s cage this season, including one of the team’s last five ventures. But he has won each of his last two decisions, those being a 5-3 triumph over Washington Nov. 5 and a relief appearance for the injured Evgeni Nabokov en route to topping the Canadiens.

As it happens, in between DiPietro’s two wins, the Islanders endured three regulation losses and one overtime falter on the watch of Nabokov and Al Montoya.

The Isles are all but certain to go with their hot hand, especially seeing as Montoya is also dealing with an injury. And the Bruins will want to refer to the Washington matchup, in particular, to decipher a winning formula against DiPietro.

In the aforementioned Nov. 5 game, the Caps took a 2-0 lead into the first intermission, then let the Islanders outshoot them, 15-7, in the second period whilst deleting that lead and usurping the momentum.

DiPietro will stand less of a chance of emerging victorious if he finds himself addressing consistent waves of opposing offense.

Moulson Brewing

Matt Moulson tallied the eventual clincher against Montreal to extend his goal-getting streak to three games and his point-getting streak to five. That dates back to the Bruins’ previous confrontation with the Islanders, when he whittled Boston’s initial 2-0 lead in half and later set up Michael Grabner to reduce another two-goal deficit to 3-2.

Anything the Bruins backliners and backstop can do to stifle Moulson will be repellent to the Islanders’ cause.

Overpowering

Dating back to the last Bruins-Islanders meeting at TD Garden, when Boston converted on its only power play of the night, the New York penalty kill has gone 13-for-18, giving it a success rate of 72.2 percent. That is a 12.4 percent decrease from where the Islanders were at the 11-game mark going into their Nov. 7 venture to New England.

Granted, the Islanders have been dealing with some of the NHL’s best power-play brigades from Vancouver and Colorado (Nos. 1 and 2 in that category). But the Bruins could still stand to buy themselves more opportunities to elevate their own special teams output, of which there have not been many in recent matchups, particularly with Columbus and New York.