BOSTON — Former Bruins Johnny Boychuk and Chad Johnson returned to Boston with their new team and helped lead the New York Islanders to a 3-2 victory on Thursday night.
Boychuk, the long-time Bruins defenseman traded to New York before the start of the season, played a strong game and Johnson, last year’s Bruins backup goaltender, stopped 30 shots as the Islanders ended a two-game losing streak and improved to 5-2.
To make things worse for the Bruins, who had a two-game winning streak snapped to fall to 4-5, defenseman and captain Zdeno Chara was lost in the first period to an unknown injury.
The Islanders held off a late Bruins charge to escape with the win.
Center Frans Nielsen and wingers Kyle Okposo and Kyle Clutterbuck scored for the Islanders, beating goaltender Niklas Svedberg, who made 35 saves.
Left winger Milan Lucic, coming off a three-assist game, scored his first goal of the season for the Bruins, who came back and made it 3-2 on Chris Kelly’s second goal of the season midway through the third period. The Bruins then turned up the heat but couldn’t tie the game.
Center Josh Bailey, who assisted in Nielsen’s goal, joined a growing Islanders injury list when he didn’t return for the third period with a hand injury.
Johnson, who signed a two-year contract with the Islanders as a free agent when it was clear Svedberg would be this year’s No. 2 behind starting netminder Tuukka Rask, improved to 2-0 with his new team. He was 17-4-3 with a 2.10 goals-against average for Boston last year.
Pressure in the offensive zone led to Nielson scoring his first of the season 6:21 into the game, as he wound up one-handing a pass from Bailey into an open net. But Lucic deflected a rolling puck home at 15:15.
The second period was all Islanders as Okposo batted a rebound out of the air and past Svedberg for his third goal of the season at 1:30. Clutterbuck took a pass from left winger Matt Martin and scored his first at 9:27.
Kelly scored on a rebound moments after defenseman Matt Bartkowski slashed the stick out of the hands of center Cory Conacher’s hands and got away with it — as Conacher was trying to break in on a semi-break.
Chara left the game after laying a heavy hit on Islanders center John Tavaras. Earlier in the period, Chara had looked shaky and was victimized on New York’s opening goal.
NOTES: Boston coach Claude Julien on Wednesday’s Parliament tragedy: “That is home, so it did hit home. Ottawa is home for me, so I spent a good portion of the afternoon looking up at the CNN station … It’s unfortunate.” The Bruins held a moment of silence, and both anthems were sung. … New York has a lengthy injury list, including D Travis Hamonic (upper body) and RW Michael Grabner (lower body), but D Lubomir Visnovsky (back spasms) made his season debut.