On Friday night, the Boston Bruins, who are currently leading the Eastern Conference, defeated the New York Islanders 5-4 thanks to a goal from David Pastrnak in the third round of a shootout.
In regulation, Pastrnak, Morgan Geekie, James van Reimsdyk, and Mason Lohrei scored; Lohrei tied the score with a bank shot from behind the goal line with 3:09 remaining. With 34 saves, Linus Ullmark helped Boston advance to 19-5-4.
“That’s the biggest win of the year,” Bruins coach Jim Montgomery stated. “Because of the attitude on the bench. It’s the first time where I felt like there was energy, emotion, everybody believed.”
Ilya Sorokin made 29 saves while Simon Holmstrom, Brock Nelson, Bo Horvat, and Alexander Romanov scored for New York. Four straight victories for New York.
“Just one of those nights where we made a couple mistakes and they ended up in the back of our net,”Lane Lambert, the Islanders’ coach, stated. “But overall I thought the effort was outstanding.”
“It’s a (heck) of a win for us,” Pastrnak stated. “Obviously an amazing job by (Ullmark) to keep us in the game early on and then a great job by the (penalty) killers … and power play finally got some important goals.”
At 5:06 of the third, Horvat’s power play goal gave the Islanders a 3-2 lead and extended his points streak to nine games.
With 10:21 remaining, it looked like Brad Marchand had tied it, but a video review revealed the Boston captain had punched the puck past Sorokin while lying prone on the ice.
Marchand drew a tripping penalty on New York captain Anders Lee during the play, but the goal was disallowed. With 9:12 remaining, van Riemsdyk’s power-play goal tied the score.
Ullmark replied, “We (weren’t) complaining and talking down to each other or anything like that.”
With 7:59 remaining, Nelson scored a touchdown on a power play after Horvat’s feed went over Ullmark, giving New York a 4-3 lead. With 3:09 remaining in regulation, however, Lohrei banked a shot from behind the goal line to force overtime.
“I just jumped in on the rush,” Lohrei remarked.
