Brock Nelson scored twice in another great New York second period, Semyon Varlamov stopped 23 shots and the Islanders beat the Boston Bruins 6-2 in Game 6 on Wednesday night to advance to the Stanley Cup semifinals per second. consecutive year.
Kyle Palmieri, Trais Zajac, Cal Clutterbuck and Ryan Pulock also scored to help the Islanders prepare for a rematch with the defending Tampa Bay Lightning. Josh Bailey and Jean-Gabriel Pageau each had two assists.
Brad Marchand scored twice for Boston and Tuukka Rask made 23 saves.
With the Nassau Coliseum crowd roaring from before the puck dropped, the game got off to a dizzying start with plenty of hard hits on both sides.
Those of Long Island climbed first to the marker. After a head-to-head in the offensive zone, Noah Dobson fired a shot from the right point that was stopped by Rask. However, the rebound went to the front and Zajac grabbed it and hit it at 8:52 for his first goal of this postseason.
The Islanders settled the first power play, but Marchand tied the score with 2:24 remaining when he received a cross pass from Pastrnak in the right circle and quickly bet high on Varlamov on the glove side.
The score was tied 1-1 after 20 minutes, but the Islanders took control with another great second period. After outscoring the Bruins 8-3 in the intervening periods of the first five games, New York had three more in the second for the third time in the series.
Nelson stole the puck from Matt Grzelcyk took off on the breakout and beat Rask in the upper right corner at 5:20 to put New York up 2-1.
Josh Bailey stole an out pass from Rask and assisted Nelson who beat the goalie down the right side with 7:23 left in the second period, for his second of the night in the sixth of the playoffs.
With the Bruins trailing 3-1, Bruins coach Bruce Cassidy broke his David Pastrnak-Marchand-Bergeron line of perfection.
However, the islanders extended the lead to 4-1 when Adam Pelech sent a shot from the left side that was stopped by Rask. However, Palmieri pounced on him, seizing the rebound and setting it up from the right side for his seventh goal of the postseason.
With the Bruins in power play, Marchand scored with 5:38 remaining to reduce Boston’s deficit to 4-2. It was Marchand’s fifth in the series and eighth in the postseason.
The suffocating Islanders defense limited the Bruins to just five shots on goal in the final third. With the minutes drawing to a close in Boston’s season, New York cornered the Bruins on their end of the ice, preventing them from pulling Rask for an additional skater until 1:25 left.
Clutterbuck scored on an empty goal with 59 seconds to go, and Pulock scored another goal 11 seconds later
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