Pavel Zacha scored the game-winning and insurance goals less than three minutes apart in the third period on Wednesday night for the visiting Boston Bruins, who beat the New York Islanders 6-3 in Elmont, N.Y.
Zacha redirected a shot by Andrew Peeke with 9:12 left before beating Ilya Sorokin with a point-blank backhand at the 13:23 mark.
Brad Marchand scored twice in the first, Morgan Geekie potted a goal in the second and Nikita Zadorov added an empty-netter with 2:02 left for the Bruins, who tied a season high in goals. Elias Lindholm and David Pastrnak each added three assists for Boston, which hadn’t scored more than four goals since a 5-3 win over the Colorado Avalanche on Oct. 16.
Goalie Joonas Korpisalo made 21 saves as the Bruins improved to 3-1-0 under interim head coach Joe Sacco.
Brock Nelson scored twice and had an assist and Maxim Tsyplakov had a goal for the Islanders, who have lost five of six (1-4-1). Sorokin recorded 15 saves.
Marchand opened the scoring just 57 seconds into the game. Lindholm won a faceoff against Casey Cizikas and the puck skittered to Marchand, who immediately fired a shot under Sorokin’s stick arm.
Marchand doubled the lead fewer than six minutes later. A clearing pass from the Bruins’ zone by Zadorov glanced off the sticks of Lindholm and New York’s Dennis Cholowski. The puck remained in the crease until Marchand swooped in and tucked a shot under Sorokin’s legs at the 6:31 mark.
Nelson helped begin the Islanders’ comeback attempt when he picked up the puck following a turnover by Parker Wotherspoon deep in the Bruins’ zone and fed Tsyplakov, who, in one motion, took the pass and beat Korpisalo with a backhand under his legs with 7:10 left.
Nelson tied the game 8:52 into the second. Isaiah George’s pass bounced off Tsyplakov’s stick and towards the Bruins’ Mason Lohrei, who couldn’t control the puck as Nelson streaked by him, picked up the puck and fired a shot beneath Korpisalo’s glove arm.
A turnover by Cholowski deep in the Islanders’ zone led to Geekie’s go-ahead goal 3:07 later, when he sent a shot past a sprawling Sorokin as Noah Dobson tried to get into the shooting lane.
Nelson tied the game again with 7.2 seconds left in the second. A pass from Ryan Pulock bounced off Nelson’s skate before the center collected the puck and beat Korpisalo stick side.
