Semyon Varlamov made save after save after save as the Bruins kept getting more dominant as the second period progressed into the third.
And the crowd at Nassau Coliseum, up to a season-high 12,000 on Thursday night, got increasingly louder as it willed the Islanders to score the equalizer.
They did. But Tuukka Rask upstaged Varlamov in overtime as the Bruins won Game 3, 2-1, to take a 2-1 series lead.
Brad Marchand scored the winner at 3:36 of overtime, snapping a shot from the left over Varlamov’s glove. That made Varlamov the hard-luck loser after he stopped 39 shots, just as he did in the Islanders’ 4-3 overtime win in Monday night’s Game 2 in Boston.