The Boston Bruins return from a three-game road trip to face the New York Islanders in their first home game of the 2025 calendar year on Sunday evening.
Both teams will look to put an end to a three-game skid, both having lost to the Toronto Maple Leafs over the previous three nights. The Bruins fell 6-4 on Saturday in Toronto to begin a back-to-back, while the Islanders’ 2-1 Thursday loss came in the latter end of a home-and-home series.
In Toronto, the Bruins rallied from 2-0 and 3-2 deficits to tie, but it was not enough against the high-flying Leafs offense that was led by a Matthew Knies hat trick and five-point nights from both him and Mitch Marner.
“It’s difficult in this league to play catch-up hockey, but it was 2-2 going into the third (period) and we had two breakdowns that they capitalized on,” Bruins interim coach Joe Sacco said. “When you get three or four (goals), you hope to come away with at least one or two points and that didn’t happen, so we’re disappointed with that.”
Boston hasn’t won since Dec. 28 against the Columbus Blue Jackets following losses on the road to the Washington Capitals and the New York Rangers — 3-1 and 2-1, respectively — prior to Saturday.
Despite the loss, Boston started to break out of a recent scoring slump as it had netted just eight goals across its previous four games.
Against the Maple Leafs, David Pastrnak registered his first multi-goal game of the season. He reached 15 goals with a pair in the third period, tying captain Brad Marchand for the team lead.
“Hopefully it … gives guys confidence, myself included, that we can start helping out the team here and getting some more goals,” forward Trent Frederic said.
Though the Islanders have won just three of their past 10 games, coach Patrick Roy said his team is playing well of late. That includes the most recent loss against Toronto, which came on a tiebreaking goal with 2:59 left in regulation.
“Overall I wouldn’t change a thing in our game, we’d love to see just better shots, the quality of our shots, that’s all,” Roy said. “The guys are working and playing hard. … I have no complaints other than not scoring goals. If we get those goals, it’ll turn around for us, I still believe in that.”
In fact, the Islanders’ past three defeats were decided by for goals total.
As they tick toward the bottom of the ultra-tight Eastern Conference, though, finding ways to win is paramount.
“I think right now I’d take a horrible game out of our team to win a hockey game,” forward Mathew Barzal said. “That’s really the only thing that matters right now is to win a hockey game. That’s really the only thing that matters right now is wins and losses.”
New York’s bill of health is still not clean despite Barzal, Anthony Duclair and Adam Pelech all returning from injury around the holiday break. With Semyon Varlamov (lower body) still out, Ilya Sorokin has played 14 of the past 15 games in goal.
Dennis Cholowski will slot into the Sunday defensive pairings as Isaiah George remains day-to-day following an elbow to the head from Toronto’s Max Domi during Thursday’s game. He landed in concussion protocol.
Marchand and Pavel Zacha each scored twice to help the Bruins to a 6-3 win in Elmont, N.Y., in the teams’ first meeting of the season on Nov. 27. Brock Nelson had two goals and one assist for the Isles.
–Field Level Media
