Colorado, Boston, Tampa Bay all win and inch closer to NHL quarterfinals
Avs blow out Coyotoes, Bruins rally big in 3rd, Lightning win 2-1 thriller
EDMONTON, Alberta —Nazem Kadri had two goals and an assist, Philipp Grubauer stopped 14 shots and the Colorado Avalanche overwhelmed the Arizona Coyotes 7-1 Monday to take a 3-1 lead their first-round playoff series.
The Avalanche jumped on Arizona after losing 4-2 in Game 3, scoring three first-period goals, two by Kadri on the power play.
Matt Calvert, Cale Makar and Mikko Rantanen each had a goal and an assist. Grubauer was sharp after Pavel Francouz started Game 3.
Matt Nieto and Joonas Donskoi also scored to put Colorado in position to clinch the series Wednesday in the Edmonton bubble.
The Coyotes had numerous defensive breakdowns and took three penalties while falling into the early hole, leaving goalie Darcy Kuemper defenseless.
Kuemper gave up four goals on 22 shots before being replaced by Antti Raanta in the third period and Jakob Chychrun scored for the Coyotes, who were held to 15 shots.
Arizona played its rope-a-Yote style to near perfection to win Game 3, absorbing Colorado’s near-constant pressure and counterattacking when the opportunities arose.
Kuemper made it work, stopping 49 shots for the second time this postseason, and the Coyotes blocked 27 shots in front of him.
Arizona wanted to be more aggressive offensively, as it was in Game 2, but Colorado had the game’s first six shots and scored late in the first period when a Coyotes turnover led to an oddman rush. Nieto scored it by angling his skate to knock the puck past Kuemper on a feed from Calvert.
Colorado kept up the pressure, leading to Arizona’s third penalty in the opening period. The Avalanche converted on the power play, going up 2-0 on Kadri’s rebound two minutes after Nieto’s goal.
Kadri scored again on a power play in the closing seconds of the first period, punching in a rebound after the Coyotes allowed Hart Trophy finalist Nathan MacKinnon an open rush at Kuemper.
BRUINS 4, HURRICANES 3: In Toronto, Jake DeBrusk scored twice in Boston’s dominating third period to help the Bruins rally and beat Carolina to take a 3-1 lead in their Eastern Conference firstround playoff series.
Brad Marchand and Connor Clifton also scored in the third, helping Boston erase a 2-0 deficit entering the period. It was a stunning turnaround — complete with the Bruins taking a 16-2 edge in shots on goal in those final 20 minutes — that now has Boston within a win of advancing in a series that looked headed for a 2-2 tie.
Game 5 is Wednesday, with the Bruins having the chance to eliminate the Hurricanes from the Stanley Cup playoffs again after sweeping Carolina in last year’s Eastern Conference finals.
Justin Williams and Jordan Martinook scored to give Carolina the 2-0 lead before the Bruins ran off four straight goals, while Teuvo Teravainen added a goal at 18:33 of the third to bring Carolina within one.
James Reimer made his second start of the series in net for the Hurricanes after Petr Mrazek had started Games 1 and 3, shutting out the Bruins for two period before faltering as Boston took over by relentlessly keeping the puck in the offensive zone. He finished with 29 saves.
Jaroslav Halak finished with 16 saves, though the Bruins made it easy on him in the third by not surrendering a shot until Teravainen’s late goal.
LIGHTNING 2, BLUE JACKETS 1: In Toronto, Andrei Vasilevskiy had 28 saves and Tampa Bay beat Columbus to take a 3-1 lead in their Eastern Conference playoff series.
Barclay Goodrow and Yanni Gourde each had a goal and an assist as the Lightning pushed the Blue Jackets to the verge of elimination after being swept by Columbus in the first round of the 2019 playoffs.
Cam Atkinson scored for Columbus, and Joonas Korpisalo had 20 saves.
The Blue Jackets seemed to have recharged after running out of gas in the Game 3 loss. They got the first goal early in the first period, but it was waved off because Alexandre Texier was offside entering the zone.
Then the Lightning scored twice in the first five minutes of the second period.
They opened the scoring 16 seconds into the second when Goodrow chopped at the puck in traffic in front of Korpisalo and popped it over his blocker. Gourde made it 2-0 by redirecting a long shot by Kevin Shattenkirk at the 4:09 mark.
Less than two minutes later, Atkinson got credit for the Columbus goal when a long shot by Pierre-Luc Dubois pinballed between Atkinson and the goalie before going into the net.
Game 5 is Wednesday morning.