Islanders defy narrative by eliminating Bruins: Three takeaways

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A fan holds a sign alluding to comments by head coach Bruce Cassidy following game five of the series between the New York Islanders and Boston Bruins. (Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images) /

Three takeaways: How the New York Islanders defied the narrative and eliminated the Boston Bruins in six games.

It took six games for the New York Islanders to eliminate the Boston Bruins. With three wins in a row, the Islanders powered their way from a 2-1 series deficit to the third round of the Stanley Cup playoffs.

And remember this was a series win that was far from expected.

Going into the series the Bruins were the heavy favorite. According to The Athletic’s Dom Luszczyszyn, the Bruins had a 26% chance of winning this series in five games. The Isles best chance was to push the series to seven games. And even then they had an 8% of taking the series in seven.

Bruins vs. Islanders series preview

Boston is arguably the league's hottest team and that makes the Bruins a very heavy favourite over the Islanders.https://t.co/Gi1z1Osjxf pic.twitter.com/zTYpANuggA
— dom at the athletic ? (@domluszczyszyn) May 28, 2021

But here we are with the New York Islanders moving on to the second round and the Boston Bruins shipping up to Boston to find, not a wooden leg, but what to do next with an old core and little reinforcements.

So how did the Islanders do it? How did they beat the Bruins when they only had a 20% chance of winning the series? It comes down to these three factors.

Kyle Palmieri #21 of the New York Islanders. (Photo by Emilee Chinn/Getty Images) /

Depth

The biggest knock against the New York Islanders is that they play a boring style that stifles the opponent’s chances and creates little of their own. This isn’t anything new of course, we’ve heard that narrative for years.

We know that the Islanders practice low-event hockey and the little talent they do have isn’t quite at the same level as some of the big-name squads out there. Like Boston.

And while that’s all true, there’s a big gap in that logic. Specifically this year. While the Islanders don’t possess the same number of “game breakers” as the Bruins do, the Isles have a ton of guys who can make an impact on any given night.

And that’s how the Isles won this series. Not because any single guy dominated the series or a game, but because multiple guys could step up on any given night and produce.

Just look at where the Islanders goals came from in this series compared to the Bruins:

*Data from NHL.com. Even strength goals in parenthesis.

Nearly 69% of the Bruins goals came from that top line. The most productive line for the Islanders (the Palmieri-Pageau-Zajac trio) accounts for 29% of the Isles goals in the series.

The Islanders weren’t able to take the Bruins top line out of this series. But they didn’t have to worry about it because the Bruins couldn’t generate anything outside of that top line. The Islanders may not have more top-tier talent than the Bruins, but they certainly have more second-tier talent than the Bruins and it was the difference in this series.

5on5 Scoring

A side note here, but an overwhelming narrative going into this series was the Islanders inability to score at 5on5.

NBC Sports Boston doesn’t take the #Isles as much of a threat: pic.twitter.com/haACkE4VGB
— Joe Pantorno (@JoePantorno) May 29, 2021

The Islanders outscored the Bruins 16-10 at 5on5. I’m not sure how NBC came to the conclusion that the Isles were worse than the Bruins at 5on5. During the regular season, the Isles were tenth for 5on5 goals-for with 113 while the Bruins were 15th with 107. The fact that the Isles bested the B’s at 5on5 in this series is no surprise.

Semyon Varlamov #40 of the New York Islanders skates against the Boston Bruins in Game Six of the Second Round of the 2021 NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs. (Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images) /

Goaltending

If you read through that last tweet highlighting a passage from NBC’s series preview you likely read the part where they state that the Rask/Swayman tandem was “far superior” to the Varlamov/Sorokin tandem. Which, just like their 5on5 theory, doesn’t hold water.

Just look at the regular season stats for both sets of goalies:

Varlamov/Sorokin: 0.929SV%, 2.04GAA/0.918SV%, 2.17GAA
Rask/Swayman: 0.913SV%, 2.28GAA/0.945SV%, 1.50GAA*

*Swayman played in ten games

I’m not sure how Rask/Swayman was “far superior”. Were they good? Yeah, of course. The Bruins tandem was good but they weren’t as NBC painted them. If anything the Islanders tandem was far better, and that’s exactly how things went in this series.

Semyon Varlamov was a star of the series. In five games he stopped 169 of the 181 shots he faced for a 0.934SV%.

Conversely, Rask stopped 148 of the 165 shots he faced for a 0.897SV%.

I can understand that Rask was injured and that he’ll need surgery. But if Swayman was as good as the pre-series narrative indicated, Cassidy would have started him at least once in this series. Or maybe even turned to veteran Jaroslav Halak. He didn’t and that tells you everything you need to know about the Bruins depth in nets.

It’s just not that good and it was one of the reasons they couldn’t claw their way into the series after Game 3.

Craig Smith #12 of the Boston Bruins argues a second-period penalty with referee Jean Hebert #15 during the game against the New York Islanders. (Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images) /

Discipline/PK

Did the Islanders get away with a few calls? Sure. That Palmieri elbow on Charlie McAvoy in Game 6 should have been called. That should have been, at minimum, a two-minute elbowing minor. There’s also a Brock Nelson boarding play on McAvoy earlier in the series that went uncalled as well. And I’m sure a Bruins fan could point out a few more that I missed.

The Isles weren’t, as Cassidy suggested, Saints.

But no were the Bruins. They were rightfully called for more penalties than the Islanders in this series, and they paid the price for it.

There was no controversy. There was no agenda. The Bruins have been an ill-disciplined team since the puck dropped at the start of the 2021 season. Their penalty kill has been bailing them out all year long with an impressive 86% efficiency.

Meanwhile, the Islanders have been one of the least penalized teams on the year. So what we saw from both teams in the regular season continued in the playoffs. Except for that excellent Bruins penalty kill.

The Bruins PK in the series was an abysmal 62.5%. The only thing that changed in this series was the Bruins ability to prevent a power-play goal. It wasn’t a biased officiating crew, or the Islanders batting their eyelashes at the refs to get out of trouble.

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