<p>BOSTON — Taylor Hall scored his second goal of the game 2:53 into overtime and the Boston Bruins beat the New York Islanders in their home finale on Monday night to clinch third place in the East Division.</p>
<p>Brad Marchand also scored for Boston, which will face second-place Washington in the first round of the playoffs. Tuukka Rask had 16 saves.</p>
<p>Mathew Barzal and Oliver Wahlstrom scored for the Islanders. Semyon Varlamov made 25 saves before he was replaced to start the third period by Ilya Sorokin, who stopped 10 shots. </p>
<p>New York will face East champion Pittsburgh in the first round.</p>
<p>Hall cut in front and beat Sorokin with a backhander for the game-winner. </p>
<p>Varlamov wasn’t on the bench for after the second intermission, and Cory Schneider came out in uniform and took a seat about seven minutes into the third period.</p>
<p>Going for the win in regulation, the Islanders pulled Sorokin for an extra skater with about a minute to play. Marchand had a long shot that just went just wide.</p>
<p>Boston had grabbed a 2-1 edge when Marchand, positioned at the top of the crease, redirected David Krejci’s pass into the net for his team-leading 29th goal at 6:15 of the second, but Barzal slipped a wrister over Rask’s right shoulder from the high slot just over two minutes later.</p>
<p>Varlamov kept it tied with two solid saves in the closing minute of the second; dropping to block Sean Kuraly’s close bid and flashing his left pad on Patrice Bergeron’s shot from the slot. </p>
<p>Trailing 1-0, the Islanders tied it on Wahlstrom’s power-play goal that beat Rask past his stick with New York skating on a 4-on-3 advantage.</p>
<p>Hall’s goal made it 1-0 in the final minute of the opening period. With the Bruins on a two-man, power-play advantage he one-timed Krejci’s pass from the opposite side of the ice inside the near post on a tough-angle shot.</p>
<p>MEMORY LANE</p>
<p>Fifty-one years ago, Bobby Orr scored an overtime goal against St. Louis to give the Bruins the Stanley Cup, with the Hall of Fame defenseman flying through-the-air horizontally with his stick raised after he was tripped just after the puck went into the net. The moment is forever captured with a statue just outside the entrance to TD Garden.</p>
<p>LARGER CROWDS ALLOWED</p>
<p>Monday’s game marked the first day that the state of Massachusetts was allowing 25% capacity at larger venues like the Garden and Fenway Park. Due to restrictions because of the COVID-19 pandemic, attendance had been limited to 12% since for fans on March 22.</p>
<p>“Let’s GO Bruins!” chants were noticeably louder. </p>
<p>NOTES: Hall has eight goals with Boston since being acquired from Buffalo in a trade-deadline deal. … Bruins forward Ondrej Kase played for the first time since sustaining an upper-body injury on Jan. 16, but forward Charlie Coyle missed his third straight with an upper-body injury. … Varlamov entered the night leading the league with seven shutouts.</p>
<p>UP NEXT</p>
<p>Islanders: Open playoffs against Pittsburgh. </p>
<p>Bruins: At Washington on Tuesday night, the regular-season finale for both teams.</p>
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