NY Islanders dominate stat sheet but fall to Boston Bruins for third time this season

Despite controlling long stretches of play, the New York Islanders fell 3-1 to the Boston Bruins on Wednesday night at UBS Arena, undone by a pair of goals from Alex Steeves and a 44-save performance from Jeremy Swayman.

Mathew Barzal opened the scoring at 4:41 of the first period with his seventh goal of the season, giving the Islanders an early boost. But Steeves tied the game less than two minutes later, and the Bruins never trailed again. Tanner Jeannot put Boston ahead 43 seconds into the second period, and Steeves added his second goal — a shorthanded tally at 10:21 of the third — to provide insurance. Steeves, signed last July after a 14-game stint with Toronto, had one career NHL goal entering the night.

The Islanders outshot Boston 45–14, including a 23-shot surge in the third period, but Swayman repeatedly denied them to improve to 10-6-0. The Bruins, now 14-11-0 under first-year coach Marco Sturm, swept the three-game season series from New York.

“It was just one shot at a time, and I was just blown away by the effort that I had in front of me all night,” Swayman said. “And it was a motivator, for sure, just doing whatever I could to stop the puck. And they blew me away. Really, really proud of this group today.”

New York’s power-play struggles continued, going 0-for-4 and falling to 0-for-27 dating back to Nov. 13. The Islanders were 0-for-19 over the previous six games.

“We didn’t even play our best game, but we put up 40+ shots and had some good looks,” Anders Lee said. “Swayman played good, we just got to get in front of his face a little bit more.”

Ilya Sorokin made 11 saves for the Islanders (13-9-2), who dropped to 1-2-0 on their seven-game homestand after a successful 6-1-0 road trip. They were coming off a 1-0 shootout win over Seattle on Sunday. Boston previously beat the Islanders 5-2 on Oct. 28 and 4-3 in a shootout on Nov. 4.