Last month, the Islanders were forced to play with a shell of a roster when they suffered a COVID-19 outbreak. On Thursday, the shoe was on the other foot.
The Bruins played without two of their best skaters, Brad Marchand and Patrice Bergeron, as well as their goaltender, Jeremy Swayman, and four other regulars. Though the league has postponed other games this week involving the Hurricanes and Flames, the Islanders and Bruins played on.
The Islanders took full advantage, beating a Bruins roster of just 17 skaters, 3-1, on the back of a season-high 40-save performance from Semyon Varlamov — the first win of the season for the Russian.
“It’s been a long time [since] I won [my] last game,” Varlamov said. “So first win for me. It feels amazing, finally. I had a tough stretch, but it’s over.”
Though it was against an undermanned squad, the Islanders (8-12-5) will be happy with the result, and with a number of previously underperforming pieces contributing.
The Identity Line of Matt Martin, Casey Cizikas and Cal Clutterbuck — which had struggled and looked at risk of being broken up — also played more like its normal self. Clutterbuck got the Islanders on the board with a wrist shot off a loose puck at 11:47 of the first period, and the unit, which had often looked wary, played with newfound energy.
“The Identity Line was playing to their identity,” Islanders coach Barry Trotz said. “They were physical and they got rewarded.”
The Bruins eventually found their game, but their mistake six seconds into the second period — in the form of a Derek Forbort high stick — allowed the Islanders to extend their lead. Anthony Beauvillier put home a slap shot at 1:44 of the period to make it 2-0.
It was Beauvillier’s first point in 15 games, his first goal in 16 games and an obvious weight off his shoulders. Just five days earlier, he had been a healthy scratch, with Trotz calling out his poor defensive effort and failure to produce.
The defensive effort was evident when Beauvillier returned to the lineup on Tuesday in Detroit. The production finally came on Thursday night.
“I’ve been kinda grinding to find my game lately,” Beauvillier said. “Last two games have been good. Definitely a wake-up call.”
Varlamov, another straggling Islander, played his best game of the year, backstopping the team when it was badly outshot during the second and third periods.
“My job was just to track the puck well and then I tried not to give up a lot of rebounds,” Varlamov said. “And the boys played well defensively today.”
Earlier in the week, the possibility of going to a three-one split in favor of Ilya Sorokin in net had been raised by Trotz. On Thursday, Varlamov made his case, making stop after stop when the Islanders were on their heels.
“Varly stood on his head again tonight,” Beauvillier said.
With 3:03 to go in the game, Varlamov denied Taylor Hall with a pad save in the crease. Less than a minute later, Clutterbuck sealed the win with an empty-net goal to make it 3-0.
The only blemish on Varlamov’s night came in the final minute, when he let in Mike Reilly’s wrist shot with 53.1 seconds to go.
“We had long stretches where we were playing like we have [in the past],” Clutterbuck said. “Still don’t know if it was a full 60 that way.”
After the Islanders looked so hapless for so long, they’ve started to find their footing over the last 10 days, going 3-2 with one of the losses coming in the dying seconds of regulation. That’s not playoff pace — at this point, playoff pace might be an unreachable standard — but it is better hockey with tangible results.
Trotz spoke afterwards of a “businesslike” approach his team took into Thursday.
“Get our game back to where we feel it’s acceptable night in and night out,” he said. “Get rid of some of the catastrophic mistakes we’ve been making. A lot of them are individual mistakes but getting those out, that’s been a process.”
And on Thursday, the process took a step forward.
