The second-round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs begins Saturday at TD Garden, inside a building that will be at 85% capacity, the highest capacity the building has seen since March 2020.

After punching their ticket to the second-round, and a date with the Bruins by ousting the East Division top-seeded Penguins in six games, the Islanders matchup very well with the Bruins.

It’s a matchup of two of the top four best defensive teams in hockey. The Islanders allowed 2.18 goals per game, second fewest during the regular season. The Bruins, 2.39 goals allowed per game in the regular season ranked fourth.

“I think they have a lot of our attributes, right? They want to be structured, they want to play with discipline, they have good goaltending, and their D certainly get involved, but they want to play D first,” said head coach Bruce Cassidy. “They’ve got different lines that can hurt you. So, in that regard, we’re playing ourselves a little bit.”

The Bruins dropped the first four games they saw against the Islanders during the season, with two of those losses coming in regulation.

After the Bruins trade deadline acquisitions of Taylor Hall, Curtis Lazar and Mike Reilly, the Bruins won all three contests against the Islanders, including back-to-back wins on Apr. 15 and 16.

“What did we do? Better third periods for one. I think that was a problem up there early in the year,” said Cassidy.

“So, whether that was us not staying patient or us making a couple of critical mistakes [that] ended up in our net, you learn from those. So obviously we managed the puck better in those last three games. I thought we were better on offense in terms of attacking their D, breaking them down, and finding some ways to create offense against their bigger D-men. Some of that was below the goal line, some of it was off the rush, we were able to get inside. And Taylor Hall definitely helped in that matter.”

Whether it’s their traditional 1-1-3 defensive setup, or the 1-2-2 system they’ve used of late, head coach Barry Trotz’s systems have given the Bruins fits, dating back to his days behind the bench of the Washington Capitals.

But this time around, the Bruins have a different weapon, one that comes with speed and could be exactly what the Bruins need to disrupt the—boring, but effective—Islanders defensive flow.

"The last series against Washington, against the Islanders (in the regular season), we've seen him go by guys in traffic, where it doesn't look like there's much materialized. And all of the sudden he comes out the other side with the puck and he's in all alone. He's got a centerman (David Krejci) that reads off him well, so he doesn't have to do it by himself, so to speak,” Cassidy said of Hall.

"But when he does get a head of speed, and he gets it in the right spots from Krejci or the D? Boy, he's dangerous. And you can see it, he backs people off and it's a little bit deceptive because he's a powerful skater that doesn't look always like he's moving that fast and really, he's flying.”

In the three games against the Islanders with Hall in the lineup, the veteran winger had four goals including the game winner in overtime on May 5th.

After allowing seven goals through two playoff games against the Penguins, Trotz made a goalie switch as the Islanders found themselves facing a 2-1 series deficit.

Veteran Semyon Varlamov was replaced by rookie Ilya Sorokin who backstopped the Islanders to three straight victories, and a series win.

His playoff save percentage of .943, slightly better than Tuukka Rask’s .941. Only the Jets’ Connor Hellebuyck was better in that regards, posting a save percentage of .950 in a four-game sweep of the Oilers.

“They’re a patient team, defend well. We saw it in the first series, [they have] two good goaltenders,” said Cassidy. “They had to go to their Plan-B and he won them all four games. So, it doesn’t matter who they put in there, they’re going to get good goaltending.”

The matchup within the matchup will be key for the Bruins. With home-ice advantage in four of the potential seven games in the series, comes the last change.

Cassidy will likely want to keep the Bergeron line away from the Islanders top pair of Adam Pelech and Ryan Pulock.

In the 775:25 of five-on-five ice time the Pelech/Pulock pairing spent together during the regular season, the Islanders controlled the shot share at 53:45. That ranked seventh among d-pairings with at least 500 minutes of five-on-five time together.

"I think we saw that in the season series. A lot of tight games, except maybe one or two. But it's really tight checking, structured hockey. I think that's what we're expecting. I do agree [with Cassidy], I feel like the systems are somewhat similar, whether it's defensive zone or forechecks and all that stuff. It kind of goes back to what we like to do as well,” said Bergeron.

"You adapt and you adjust through the course of the playoffs, whether it's one round to the next or also during a series. It's gonna be a lot of that, going back to video, making adjustments from one game to the next. We're expecting a tight and very hard series."

Trotz and the Islanders will likely look to keep their top trio led by Matthew Barzal—you know that guy? 2015? NHL Draft? Bruins said no? —away from the Bruins top pairing of Charlie McAvoy and Matt Grzelcyk.

In the 45:28 the two former Boston University teammates spent together five-on-five against the Islanders in four games this season, the Bruins held the edge in:

Shot attempts: 58-28
Shots on goal: 33-9
Scoring chances: 29-16
Goals: 2-1

Whichever way you slice it, this series looks to be a tight one from start to finish.

“For us it’s it’s a matter of staying within ourselves to play the game in front of you. But I thought earlier in the year the games that got away from us as much as what we did as what they did. And the later games here at home, I thought we managed pucks better and didn’t try to force the issue in games that were tight,” said Cassidy.

“We sort of let the game come to us and dictate the terms. So that’s kind of our goal going forward.”

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