Islanders: Three Takeaways from Blowout Win over Bruins

UNIONDALE, NEW YORK - FEBRUARY 25: The New York Islanders celebrate a goal by Anders Lee #27 (2nd from right) at 14:44 of the third period against Jaroslav Halak #41 of the Boston Bruins at Nassau Coliseum on February 25, 2021 in Uniondale, New York. (Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)
UNIONDALE, NEW YORK - FEBRUARY 25: The New York Islanders celebrate a goal by Anders Lee #27 (2nd from right) at 14:44 of the third period against Jaroslav Halak #41 of the Boston Bruins at Nassau Coliseum on February 25, 2021 in Uniondale, New York. (Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)
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Jean-Gabriel Pageau #44 and Oliver Wahlstrom #26 of the New York Islanders. (Photo by Emilee Chinn/Getty Images)
Jean-Gabriel Pageau #44 and Oliver Wahlstrom #26 of the New York Islanders. (Photo by Emilee Chinn/Getty Images) /

The New York Islanders beat the Boston Bruins for the third time in as many tries on Thursday night, scoring five third-period goals to cruise to a 7-2 win.

The New York Islanders hadn’t scored five goals in a single game this season before Thursday night. Then they exploded for five in the third period alone to beat the Boston Bruins by a final score of 7-2.

Here are three takeaways from a game defined by its lopsided final frame.

1. Pageau Continuing to Prove Islanders Made the Right Trade

366 days after the trade that made him a New York Islander, J.G. Pageau continued to show everyone why Lou Lamoriello felt so strongly about acquiring him.

Pageau buried his eighth goal of the season, and his second short-handed, on a breakaway in the third period to put the Islanders ahead 5-2. He played the second-most minutes among Islanders forwards in all situations, splitting duties between his usual 5v5 line centering Oliver Wahlstrom and Leo Komarov, and playing on the right-wing of Matt Martin and Casey Cizikas’s line after Cal Clutterbuck’s injury.

The Islanders penalty kill fired more shot attempts than the Bruins did with Pageau and his PK partner Leo Komarov on the ice, and the shorthanded duo were two of four Islanders to finish with xGF%’s over 50% at 4v5.

At 5v5, JGP and young Oliver Wahlstrom continued their strong run of play alongside each other. Both Pageau and Wahlstrom’s CF% spiked more than 20% when the two were deployed together as opposed to separately. Wahlstrom’s xGF% went from 13.85% without Pageau to a nice 69.84% with him.

Pairing Pageau and Wahlstrom continues to be a no-brainer for Barry Trotz.

Pageau, who spent much of the early season flanked by wingers whose skillset simply didn’t mesh well with his, gets a skilled young winger with a killer shot and some relatively good defensive awareness for his age. Wahlstrom gets a center who possesses the top-end skill to complement his style of play but also has a great 200-foot game and limits scoring chances in the defensive zone.

I’ve been beating this drum since before the 2020-21 season began, but giving Pageau the right-wingers to complement his own skillset should be a top priority for Barry Trotz. Lou Lamoriello went out and got an ideal 3C for this team in JGP and it would be wasteful not to optimize his skillset with wingers who work well alongside him.

Trotz has found some wingers who he likes deploying with Pageau at 5v5, and who complement the 28-year-old Québécois’ skillset, and the third line has looked better because of it. That’s how you optimize a trade, and the Pageau deal continues to look better with each new game because of it.

Semyon Varlamov #40, Adam Pelech #3, and Ryan Pulock #6 of the New York Islanders. (Photo by Elsa/Getty Images)
Semyon Varlamov #40, Adam Pelech #3, and Ryan Pulock #6 of the New York Islanders. (Photo by Elsa/Getty Images) /

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.

Oliver Wahlstrom #26 of the New York Islanders (Photo by Elsa/Getty Images)
Oliver Wahlstrom #26 of the New York Islanders (Photo by Elsa/Getty Images) /

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.

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