[ Game summary ]

By Nancy Marrapese-Burrell, Globe Staff, 1/4/2003

NIONDALE, N.Y. - The Bruins began January the way they ended December, with a loss.

This time, though, it wasn't a one-goal squeaker. If Boston had been sound defensively - their recent skid was blamed on lack of offense - last night was the opposite.

The Bruins were brutal in their zone and the neutral zone, and it came back to haunt them in a decisive 8-4 loss to the Islanders at Nassau Coliseum. It was the most goals the Bruins have allowed this season and the most since Jan. 23 of last year, against the Rangers.

Mark Parrish was the hero of the night for the Islanders, potting a hat trick and an assist.

The Bruins have dropped three of their last four and the Islanders have won five in a row.

New York set the tone early in the first period. Bruins goaltender John Grahame, making his seventh consecutive start, got himself in trouble right out of the gate. After Alexei Yashin threw the puck behind the net, Grahame skated out of the crease to play it. He got nothing on the clearing attempt and delivered it right to Jason Blake in the left circle. Blake had an open net and the Islanders went up, 1-0, at 1:22.

''Obviously, I made a bad play at the beginning,'' Grahame said. ''I didn't get the puck out. It just fluttered off my stick. Everything snowballed from there.''

More sloppiness in the defensive zone led to the Islanders' second goal. With the Bruins unable to clear the puck, Parrish fanned on a pass attempt to left wing Brad Isbister. But he got the puck back and beat Grahame at 2:55.

''I felt like we were in, I was at least, quicksand and I couldn't get out,'' said Grahame, who was in for all eight goals. ''It was mass confusion everywhere.''

Glen Murray got his team back into the contest at 11:04 when he potted his 19th of the season. Joe Thornton beat Dave Scatchard in the right faceoff circle, winning it back to Murray. His quick release beat goalie Chris Osgood and cut the Islanders' lead in half.

But the first of three penalties (one a major) on Thornton hurt. Parrish buried a Yashin rebound on the power play to make it 3-1 at 12:48. The Bruins battled to within one again, on the first goal in 13 games by Jozef Stumpel. Nick Boynton put the puck on net and rookie Ivan Huml got a stick on it. Osgood made the stop, but Stumpel, on the doorstep, punched in the rebound for his eighth.

The Bruins allowed a goal in the final minute (something they did in the first two periods). After yet another failed clearing attempt, Scatchard redirected a puck from Roman Hamrlik past Grahame at 19:08 and gave the Islanders a two-goal cushion at 4-2.

Things only got worse in the second for the Bruins. Yashin cashed in on the power play at 6:32 for his 10th of the season. Grahame had the puck in his glove but Parrish poked it out and Yashin put it home. Right wing Mattias Weinhandl made it 6-2 just over a minute later on an odd-man rush at 7:40. Murray tried to stem the bleeding with another goal, at 11:27, but any hope the Bruins had of climbing back evaporated with less than a minute left.

Parrish completed the hat trick with just 30.9 seconds remaining. Officials tacked the remaining 30 seconds onto the start of the third because of the number of hats - given out prior to the game - littering the ice.

The Islanders added insult to injury with a shorthanded goal by Blake early in the third period. Michal Grosek closed it out for Boston with his second of the season.

This story ran on page F1 of the Boston Globe on 1/4/2003.
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