Game Preview: Islanders vs. Bruins

NEW YORK ISLANDERS (9-6-3) VS BOSTON BRUINS (11-3-2)
7 PM | NASSAU COLISEUM
WATCH: MSG+ | MSG GO | NHL.TV
LISTEN: 88.7FM | 103.9FM | 1050AM
The New York Islanders host the Boston Bruins on Thursday night for their third meeting of the season and in the second game of the Islanders' four-game homestand. The Islanders have won the first two meetings between the clubs.

The Islanders are coming off of a 3-2 win over Buffalo on Monday night in which Anders Lee, Matt Martin and Jean-Gabriel Pageau scored while Semyon Varlamov made 34 saves.
The Bruins enter the contest well rested. Boston last played on Sunday night at the Honda NHL Outdoors at Lake Tahoe game where they soundly defeated the Philadelphia Flyers 7-3.
In the first two meetings of this season, the Islanders defeated the Bruins 1-0 in their home opener on Jan. 18 and won 4-2 on Feb. 13. Pageau has scored a total three goals, including one game winner and one shorthanded goal throughout both contests. Despite the two wins, the Islanders know there are no easy games against the top team in the East Division.
"You're probably not going to stop the power play and the big line [David Pastrnak - Patrice Bergeron - Brad Marchand]," Head Coach Barry Trotz said. "They're probably going to have some effect on the game, you try to limit that. You've got to play a hard game, you've got to play a north game. They're a straight-line team. Boston, as dynamic as that first line is, they're a pretty straight line team. They go north, they put pucks in play and they execute. They go up and down the ice pretty hard. We beat them a couple ways, but the number one way for us is we've had to try and match their north-south game."

ISLANDERS NOTES:

• Pageau delivered the Islanders' game-winner on Monday at 15:08 in the third period on the power play. The goal was his sixth tally in the last seven games and his seventh goal of the season, tied with Jordan Eberle for the second-most goals among the team. Pageau leads the Islanders with three game-winning goals this season and is now tied with Anders Lee for the second-most points in the Islanders leaderboard with 11 points (7G, 4A) through 18 games.
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• Lee opened up scoring as the Islanders captain deposited his team-leading eighth goal of the season. Lee now has 11 points (8G, 3A) through 18 games.
• Martin lit the lamp for the second time this season and now has four points (2G, 2A) through 18 games.
• Nick Leddy recorded his ninth assist, which tied with Mathew Barzal for the team lead, with his helper on Pageau's goal. Leddy leads Islanders defensemen in scoring with 10 points (1G, 9A).
• Semyon Varlamov recorded his third-straight start and his 14th start of the season to improve his record of 8-4-2. Varlamov has a 2.06 GAA and a .927 SV%.
• Austin Czarnik returned to the lineup and replaced Leo Komarov for his second game of the season. Czarnik recorded two shot attempts and logged 9:11 TOI.
Read more about Czarnik here
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• The Islanders have scored a game-winning, power-play goal in the third period of each of their last three home wins.
• The Islanders now have earned points in their first six home games (5-0-1).
• Michael Dal Colle missed his third-straight game with a lower-body injury after blocking a shot on Feb. 16 against Buffalo. Dal Colle continues to be listed as day-to-day as confirmed by Trotz following the Islanders' practice on Wednesday.
UPDATE: Dal Colle is unavailable for Thursday's game, per Trotz.

BRUINS NOTES:

UPDATE: Jaroslav Halak will start in goal for Bruins. The former Islander is playing at the Coliseum for the first time since April 25, 2015. Halak is 4-1-1 this season with a 1.66 GAA and a .928 SV%.
Defenseman Jakub Zboril will also return after missing two games with an upper-body injury.
• David Pastrnak powered Boston's win on Sunday as the Czech winger recorded his second hat trick of the season. After missing the first seven games of the season as he recovered from an offseason hip surgery, Pastrnak now has nine goals in as many games and is tied with linemate Brad Marchand for the team lead in goals scored. The 24-year-old now has 14 points (9G, 5A).
• Charlie McAvoy, Charlie Coyle, Nick Ritchie and Trent Frederic also scored for the Bruins on Sunday. Frederic scored his first-career goal in the outdoor game.
• Tuukka Rask made 16 saves and improved his record to 7-2-1 with the win. The veteran Finnish netminder has a 2.56 GAA and a .901 SV%.
• Jack Studnicka returned to the Bruins lineup on Sunday for the first time since Jan. 28 after getting sent down to the Boston's AHL affiliate the Providence Bruins. In his return, Studnicka posted an assist, and his second point (1G, 1A) of the season, on Pastrnak's third goal of the game.
• Urho Vaakanainen made his season debut on the blueline for the Bruins and recorded his first-career point on an assist on Pastrnak's second goal.
• The Bruins rank in the top 10 in almost all facets of the most common NHL stats. Defensively, Boston allows the third-fewest goals against per game in the NHL with a nightly average of 2.25. On special teams, the Bruins power play is ranked sixth overall in the NHL (30.0%) and their penalty kill is ranked second overall at 87.7%. Boston fires off the seventh-most shots for per game with a nightly average of 31.6 and conversely, is ranked first overall in the NHL with the fewest shots-against average of 25.1.
• In the circle, Boston's is ranked first overall with a 57.6 FOW%. Bruins captain Patrice Bergeron ranks third in the NHL at draws with a 62.9 FOW% and has taken 225 faceoffs through 16 games this season.
• The Bruins injured reserve list currently consists of; David Krejci (lower-body, day-to-day) Matt Grzelcyk (lower-body), Kevan Miller (load management) and Ondrej Kase (upper body). The team announced on Wednesday morning that defenseman Jeremy Lauzon underwent surgery on his left hand and will be reassessed in four weeks.