NHL

Islanders buried by Bruins, 4-1, after 20 bad minutes

Before the game, Islanders coach Jack Capuano called it a “template for how we have to play.”

“You look at our roster,” he said, “we need all 20 guys going.”

Well, what he got Tuesday night was something quite dissimilar, but not something new. With a big rut in the second period, the inconsistent Islanders lost, 4-1, to the Bruins at Nassau Coliseum.

In the first game of a seven-game homestand, the team went to 2-8-0 on Long Island, stinking up this old barn in its waning years. And it’s not from poor intentions, just from lack of consistent execution that makes for periods of sloppy hockey – not something an elite team like the Bruins lets go unpunished.

The young Isles (8-11-1) fought off the physical Bruins (12-2-2) for a good 40 minutes, and showed glimpses of why their internal hope is not entirely misguided.

But by giving up two unanswered goals in the second period, followed up by three penalties to stall any momentum, the team dug itself a hole found to be insurmountable.

It was the second period that really buried the Islanders. It only took 38 seconds into the frame before Brad Marchand roofed a backhand from right in front after he corralled the puck from a blocked shot by rookie defenseman Thomas Hickey. That made it 2-1, and the announced 12,788 in attendance began to grumble.

Less than five minutes later, the Bruins came out of their zone easily with speed, and on a 3-on-3 rush, Isles center Marty Reasoner got turned around in the middle of the ice and lost David Krejci, who took a crossing pass from Milan Lucic and buried it.

Now with the score 3-1, the Islanders thought the best way to fight back would be to take penalties – so they took three of them. Luckily, the Bruins power play continued its power outage, and didn’t run away. After Evgeni Nabokov kept the Islanders in it during a wide-open third, the Bruins added an empty-netter from Greg Campbell in the final minutes of the third.

The second period was a bit a surprising turn of events after a pretty even first, where the Islanders outshot the Bruins, 11-10, and the game was physical and had pace. The Bruins opened the scoring when Adam McQuaid took a wide-open slap shot from the right circle that got over Nabokov’s left shoulder as Lucic charged the net (pushing defenseman Andrew MacDonald along for the ride). The Islanders tied the game with just under five minutes remaining, as Josh Bailey made a patient move entering the zone and passed to rookie Casey Cizakas in front for the second goal of his career, making it 1-1.

bcyrgalis@nypost.com