There are frustrating second periods, and there was Saturday afternoon's second period.
The Bruins lost Tuukka Rask to what appeared to be a serious lower-body injury and lost what should have been an easy two points to the New York Islanders on Saturday before a full house at TD Garden in Boston.
Milan Lucic opened the scoring for Boston at the tail end of a strong power play shift. At the shift's beginning, he nearly set up Brian Rolston for a goal, but kept skating until Rolston could find him camped out at the edge of the crease, where Lucic neatly deposited a wrist shot into the net past Evgeni Nabokov.
The next two goals were New York's, as Josh Bailey scored under Rask's right pad late in the first and Matt Moulson netted a power play goal from a scrum in front of Tim Thomas.
Things looked bleak for Boston, but the Bruins trademark third period gave them a boost as Zdeno Chara found Tyler Seguin with a 100-foot pass and Seguin used a forehand-backhand move on a partial breakaway to even the score.
It was shortly after that that Marc Streit laid out Daniel Paille, who left the game favoring his left shoulder, not to return.
With under five minutes to go, after the linesmen missed an icing call in the Islanders' end, New York promptly picked the puck up and came back down the ice, where John Tavares tipped in a Matt Moulson shot from the point that beat Tim Thomas on the far side.
A late Bruins rush produced a scrum in front of the puck when Milan Lucic was unable to get the puck past a prone Nabokov, who kept the puck out with the paddle of his stick and the Bruins were unable to capitalize off the ensuing faceoff.