Islanders allow three third-period goals vs. Bruins, turning back-and-fourth game into lopsided loss

The Islanders had rallied twice, erasing a two-goal deficit in the first period and a one-goal deficit in the second. Yet while they didn’t have a third-period lead to blow against the Bruins, they still cost themselves the game over the final 20 minutes.

So the Islanders went into Thanksgiving with the sour taste of a 6-3 loss on Wednesday night at UBS Arena to conclude a 1-2-0 homestand that ended with increasing chants of “Let’s Go Bruins” and calls for firing president/general manager Lou Lamoriello.

“The crowd noise, you hear some of it,” said Brock Nelson, who scored twice as part of a three-point game. “No one in here is happy with where we’re at or the results. We all want to win and we know we have to be better.”

Yet, the Bruins’ Pavel Zacha scored twice in a span of two minutes, 35 seconds in the final period to snap a 3-3 tie. He deflected defenseman Andrew Peeke’s point shot past Ilya Sorokin (15 saves) for the winner at 10:48 of the third period after defenseman Scott Mayfield bumped into his own goalie. Then a defensive miscommunication and poor stick placement allowed David Pastranak to feed Zacha from behind the net for an in-tight backhander at 13:23.

Defenseman Nikita Zadorov added an empty-netter.

“I guess we just found a way to lose that game, basically,” coach Patrick Roy said.

“Both teams make [mistakes],” defenseman Ryan Pulock said. “You’ve got to limit them. At times, it’s too many. We need to find a way to come together and fix the problem. Right now, we’re just not finding that. I don’t think it’s mental. I just think we’ve got to bear down. You’ve got to know the situation of the game. You’ve just got to be sharp.”

The Islanders (8-10-5) had lost four of their previous five games because they could not protect a third-period lead. Nelson tied the game at 3-3 by lifting a wrister from low in the left circle with 6.5 seconds left in the second period.

“I feel like we’re playing good, we’re not winning,” Roy said. “I’m not stupid, I know that it’s a big part of the equation. We do a lot of good things. I’d rather focus on those things than going and saying to you all, ‘We did this bad and that bad.’”

“It’s a great group and we do the best with the guys we have. I love these guys. They work hard. They're pushing. It's the team that Lou gave me and I'm going to work extremely hard for these guys.”

Joonas Korpisalo made 21 saves for the Bruins (11-10-3), now 3-1-0 since Joe Sacco replaced the fired Jim Montgomery as coach.

The Islanders had scored first in their previous four games yet had lost third-period leads in four of their last five games (1-3-1).

The Islanders had conceded a 2-0 lead to the Bruins. Brad Marchand connected on a one-timer just 57 seconds into the first period after Elias Lindholm beat Casey Cizikas on a draw in the Islanders’ zone, then scored again at the crease at 6:31.

That prompted Roy to use his timeout.

“Yeah, there was some resiliency,” Kyle Palmieri said. “But, as a whole, we’ve got to keep the puck out of our net. We fought back from 2-0, not a great start. Found a way to get it tied going into the third.”

Maxim Tsyplakov, who earlier in the first period lifted a backhander over the net on a wide-open look from in-tight, backhanded the puck through Korpisalo’s pads at 12:50. Nelson, coming into the Bruins’ zone with speed off a turnover, then lifted a wrister to tie it at 2-2 at 8:52 of the second period before Morgan Geekie’s one-timer from the left circle off Zacha’s cross-ice feed regained a one-goal lead for the Bruins at 11:59.

Notes & quotes: The Islanders and UBS Arena distributed 200 Thanksgiving dinners to families in need prior to the game, with players, players’ wives and UBS staff members volunteering to help distribute the meals…Defenseman Grant Hutton and forward Hudson Fasching were the healthy scratches but Roy said Fasching would play on Friday afternoon in Washington…Roy briefly flip-flopped Anders Lee and Simon Holmstrom in the second period, wanting Holmstrom’s speed on the top line and Lee’s defense to help Cizikas’ third line.

By Andrew Gross

andrew.gross@newsday.comAGrossNewsday

Andrew Gross joined Newsday in 2018 to cover the Islanders. He began reporting on the NHL in 2003 and has previously covered the Rangers and Devils. Other assignments have included the Jets, St. John’s and MLB.