Islanders: Three Takeaways from Blowout Win over Bruins

2. Pelech and Pulock vs. the Bergeron Line

The Boston Bruins top line featuring Patrice Bergeron, Brad Marchand, and David Pastrnak absolutely trounced a wounded and weak Philadelphia Flyers on Sunday at the NHL’s weekend retreat in Lake Tahoe.

Pastrnak scored a hat-trick, Bergeron and Marchand collected a few assists, and the “Perfection Line” combined for six total points in Boston’s 7-3 rout of the Flyers on the south shore of Lake Tahoe.

Like in the Islanders’ and Bruins’ previous two meetings, that was the assignment the defensive pairing of Adam Pelech and Ryan Pulock were deployed against Thursday. A tough assignment for any D pairing. But, Pelech and Pulock have been among the NHL’s very best duos during 2020-21 in xGF%, and their performance on Thursday was another good one.

Unsurprisingly, on February 13, the last time the Islanders and Bruins played, Pelech and Pulock shared the ice most-often against the Bergeron line. While many elements of the intriguing matchup between the Islanders suffocating pairing and the Bruins electric top line stayed the same, there were also some key differences to Thursday’s action.

The main difference between Thursday and February 13 was the ability of the Bergeron line to consistently drive play into the offensive zone against the Islanders top pair at 5v5. That didn’t happen as much in the previous meeting, a 4-2 Islanders win.

According to Natural Stat Trick, the Bergeron line won Thursday’s Corsi and Fenwick battle 14-10 and 11-6 respectively at 5v5. So they got their shots, and they accrued a fair bit of zone time.

But, Thursday is also a great example of quantity vs. quality. While Begeron and Co. slung more rubber than any of the other Bruins lines, they also had the worst xGF and xGF% rating of any of Boston’s 5v5 trios, according to Natural Stat Trick. In other words, they shot the puck more often than the other Boston forward lines, but it was from lower-percentage locations.

Pastrnak, Sunday’s hat-trick hero, finished with .13 ixG, and Brad Marchand finished with a measly .02 in the same category. Patrice Bergeron got four very high-quality shot attempts from the inner slot, and he led the way for his line on Thursday in the losing effort.

It’s always intriguing when the Islanders and Bruins meet. Not in the least because when they do we get to see a showdown between one of the NHL’s premier offensive units and one of its best defensive ones. That’s what we got again on Thursday, and the Islanders got the better of it this time. Hopefully, that’s a trend we get to see more of in the future.

3. Thursday Another Example of Wahlstrom’s Encouraging Growth

Oliver Wahlstrom continued impressing me on Thursday. At only 20-years-old, Wahlstrom has shown an ability to adapt his game to the NHL level, and he has done so while playing in one of the more rigidly-structured NHL systems, under a coach who expects effort and competence over all 200 feet of the rink.

It may sound odd to some of you, but I really get the feeling that a lot of hockey fans fail to comprehend just how difficult making the jump from juniors or college to the NHL is at 18, 19, or 20-years-old.

For every Auston Matthews or Connor McDavid, players who made a seamless and extremely impressive transition, there are many 18 or 19-year-old NHL rookies who struggle to find their footing.

Just look at Jack Hughes and Kaapo Kakko in 2019-20, or Tim Stützle (whose underlying metrics show a player struggling to drive 5v5 play on a poor Senators team) and Alexis Lafrenière this season (subscription required). All four are incredibly talented players. Yet, they’ve all had struggles in their 18 or 19-year-old rookie campaigns.

Wahlstrom, who is 20 and now in his draft-season-plus-two, is only just starting to find his footing at the NHL level, and that’s okay. Making the jump in a player’s draft year or draft-year-plus-one is incredibly difficult and can put a lot of unnecessary pressure on a teenager to live up to fans’ often lofty, many times unreasonable expectations.

What seems most important is Wahlstrom’s game is growing, and it’s happening before our eyes. He looks visibly more confident of late, he’s shown less hesitation to use his very good shot, and he has found some really good chemistry with J.G. Pageau.

His goal on Thursday wasn’t exactly one for the highlight reel, but the smile on his face after said it all. That goal mattered to him way more than it did to the outcome of the game. Whether that tally kicks off a hot streak or not, who can really say with any degree of certainty?

But, it’s encouraging if nothing else. He’s put a lot of shots toward the net lately, and for one to finally go in must be relieving to him. He finished with a team-high .63 ixG (individual expected goals) according to Moneypuck because of the three shot attempts he had from within the slot, and if he continues doing that he’s going to start finding the net more often.

Wahlstrom has been the best winger Pageau has had all season. At 20-years-old, and still, in the infancy of his NHL career, that is very impressive, even if it’s on an Islanders team that lacks winger depth in the middle of its lineup.

I wanted to get some thoughts in about certain Islanders who are outshooting their xG marks, and others who are having less luck in that department, but I guess I had more to say about Wahlstrom than I thought I did. So, I’ll have to do that another time. Keep an eye out for it. Enjoy your Friday, and let’s get ready for this weekend’s back-to-back vs. Pittsburgh.