"You'd like to build on it. You hope your team would build on that kind of stuff. So it is disappointing that you're not able to build on that stuff," said Bruins coach Claude Julien. "I think we owe it to our fans to be better than we were. Whether there's fatigue in our team or not, I don't know. You think your team is ready to go. I think that we felt we were ready to go, but we were flat. We'll leave it at that."
The Bruins did not believe they took the game lightly, despite the Islanders entering the game in last place in the Eastern Conference. The Islanders, after all, defeated the Bruins, 4-2, at TD Garden just before Christmas.
"Claude mentioned that before the game - last game we played here they got us and it was a bit of a flat game again last time," said Tuukka Rask, who was replaced by Zane McIntyre to start the third period. "We didn't want to underestimate them. Any team in this league is good even though the standings might show otherwise. We just never got it going."
The Bruins kept things scoreless deep into the second period, but a five-minute stretch late in the middle frame quickly turned a close contest into an insurmountable deficit, with the Islanders cashing in for three goals.
"The game was pretty even until that [five] minutes," said David Backes. "I don't know if we wanted to hit simulate on the old video game today because we figured we had more points than them and it was going to come or what.
"But the result is certainly not what we're looking for when we just established ourselves back to .500 at home and wanted to make this a tough place for anyone to come into. We just didn't bring it tonight and it's unacceptable on all of our parts."
Nikolay Kulemin kicked things off for New York, taking a Casey Cizikas pass from the behind the net and firing one past Tuukka Rask at 13:18 of the second. The Islanders doubled their lead 1:42 later when Josh Bailey sneaked a bad angle shot by Rask, before Kulemin notched his second of the game with just 1:22 to go in the period.
"I think the first period was a great example of how the whole game went. We had more shots, but nothing really happening," said Rask. "They only had [three] shots and nothing for them either, but then the second they got that first goal and gained a bit of momentum and then a kind of a weak one by me in the second goal, and then that was it."
A shorthanded goal by Jason Chimera with eight minutes remaining closed the books on the dispiriting loss and left the Bruins, once again, searching for answers about how to solve their issues with consistency.
"It's just on us in this room to bring it and to have that pride every night that it matters," said Backes. "It doesn't matter who you're playing, the same two points are on the line and you can't play a different game if it's the Islanders or the next game in Detroit, or whoever the heck is after that.
"It's just got to be a consistent effort, play our game…I think we've disappointed with our effort…the result is a lot of disappointment when we leave the rink."
