In Boston, Jeremy Swayman made 25 saves and the Bruins shut out the New York Islanders on Friday, 3-0.
“I think first and foremost the win was the most important part of tonight’s game,” Swayman said. “The shutout was kind of the cherry on top. I was just super excited to get that accomplishment and I know I’ll remember that one for a long time. But again, it couldn’t have been done without the defense I had in front of me, and the players up front as well. So I’m super happy with that team effort.”
David Pastrnak opened the scoring to give the Bruins a 1-0 lead with three second left in the opening frame.
“I think I played pretty good the last couple games. … Obviously, the puck wouldn’t go in for me,” Pastrnak said. “But how I said, I think the last couple of games the chances were there. Obviously, it’s frustrating sometimes when you don’t score for many games, and especially when they were [going] in before. You know you’re just going to stick with it, show up to the rink every single morning, work your butt off, and get ready for the next game.”
The Islanders are 1-3-0 in their past four games.
“It’s not coming real easy right now,” Islanders coach Barry Trotz said. “We played a good hockey team that I’d say is desperate because they’ve still got some ground to make up and now they’ve got some games in hand. They’re right with the four teams [atop the division] right now.
“We’ve got to take care of our own game, but there’s a lot of positive things to take out of this game. We were way better this game than we were [Thursday]. If we had played this game last night, I think we might have won the hockey game.”
Taylor Hall scored in the middle frame to push the lead to 2-0.
Boston improved to 24-12-6 and are six points up with a game in hand on the New York Rangers.
Curtis Lazar potted an empty-net goal to ice the win with 72 seconds left in the game.
Ilya Sorokin made 25 saves in the loss.
“I think we were pretty happy with our first [period],” the Islanders’ Andy Greene said. “We gave up that late one, but we were still pretty really happy with it, to tell you the truth. And then … they always say the last minute, first minute of periods, the last minute or two or the first minute or two are mental swings. We didn’t close it out in the first, and then obviously didn’t open it up in the second the right way.”
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