In Boston,the Bruins’ Charlie Coyle hit for his first NHL hat trick and four points in Thursday neigh’s 5-2 win over the visiting New York Islanders. 
“It feels good,” Coyle said. “I was just on the end of a lot of good plays and passing plays, and sometimes it just goes that way. You get a sense it kind of feels like getting your first goal out of the way. You kind of think those are the milestones, but you can never really focus on that stuff.”
Linus Ullmark made 27 saves in the win.
The Bruins improved to 11-1-1.
“[The Islanders are] a team that notoriously are one of the top forechecking teams, and they go hard to the net with a lot of point shots,” Bruins coach Jim Montgomery said. “I thought in the second period they were better than us, and that’s where they got to their game, and I thought we contributed to that with our puck management and our changes.”
The Bruins took a 1-0 lead in the first on a strike by Trent Frederic at 14:05 of the first.
The Isles replied with a power play goal from Brock Nelson to tie the game, 1-1,at 17:23.
“I thought we did a lot of good things tonight,” said Islanders forward Bo Horvat, who played after missing one game with a lower-body injury. “Obviously, we lost the special teams game. Obviously, that killed us. … We have to figure out ways to bear down and score those big goals in those big times because obviously these games are important. These points are important.”
Coyle hit for his first of the game at 6:06 of the middle frame to give the Bruins a 2-1 off the power play.
New York stayed with the Bruins when they tied the game, 2-2, when Simon Holmstrom hit for a shorthanded goal at 2:50 of the third.
The Bruins then scored three straight to wrest control of the game from the Isles.
“The season’s long. You’re going to go through different types of games,” Boston’s David Pastrnak said. “You’re going to be up, you’re going to be chasing the game, and you just have to believe in the process, play our game, and we have a good group in here.”
The Isles dropped to 5-4-3,
Pastrnak scored 43 seconds later to give the Bruins a 3-2 advantage.
“We score a huge short-handed goal, and then we’ve got to find a way to kill the penalty, and we didn’t,” Islanders coach Lane Lambert said. “Right now, we’ve got to find a way to dig ourselves back in and dig ourselves out a little bit. There’s too many times that [in] these costly moments, we’re not up to the task at the moment.”
Coyle scored twice to finish his hat trick on with just over a minute left with an empty-net goal for the 5-2 final.
“I think it was [Coyle] and ‘Freddy’ [Frederic] on the boards [who] did a really good job of winning that battle, keeping the puck alive,” Boston’s James van Riemsdyk said. “And I was kind of underneath their coverage and had a lot of time to make my way to the net, and [Coyle] got to a great spot, and I was just trying to find him on the tape, and he made a strong play to get it up in that scenario and score the goal.”
Ilya Sorokin made 30 saves in the loss.
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