BRUINS PUSH WAY BACK INTO SERIES
Brad Marchand had a goal and two assists on Friday night to help the Boston Bruins take their first lead against the Hurricanes all season — and hold onto it for a 4-2 victory over Carolina at home in Game 3 of their first-round playoff series.
Rookie Jeremy Swayman stopped 25 shots in his first career playoff start after Linus Ullmark allowed eight goals in the first two games, both Hurricanes victories. That followed a regular season in which Carolina swept all three games, outscoring the Bruins 16-1 and never trailing.
“It’s been a while,” Bruins coach Bruce Cassidy said, noting that the teams didn’t play in the pandemic-shortened 2021 season, so they hadn’t beaten Carolina since 2020. “Playing with a lead, we’ve talked about it enough. It makes a difference for both teams.”
Charlie Coyle scored a short-handed goal and added an assist, and David Pastrnak had a power-play goal and an assist for Boston, which hopes to even the best-of-seven series when it hosts Game 4 on Sunday. Taylor Hall added a powerplay goal for the Bruins to make it 4-1 early in the third period.
Vincent Trocheck and Jaccob Slavin scored for Carolina, and backup goalie Pyotr Kochetkov made 24 saves in his first career playoff start. He took over in Game 2 after starter Antti Raanta was injured in a collision with Pastrnak.
Trocheck gave the Hurricanes a 1-0 lead, swiping in a rebound just as he was belatedly knocked down in front of the net. But Coyle tied it on a giveand-go with Jake DeBrusk with 2:44 left in the first.
Maple Leafs 5, Lightning 2: Jack Cambell had 32 saves — including three to protect the lead on a late power play — and Toronto took a 2-1 series lead in the first-round Eastern Conference matchup.
Ilya Mikheyer had two empty-net goals in the final two minutes, and Morgan Rielly, Colin Blackwell and David Kampf also scored for Toronto.
Ross Colton and Ondrej Palat scored for Tampa Bay, and Andrei Vasilevskiy had 31 saves.
Game 4 is Sunday night in Tampa.
The Lightning are 16-0 in games following a playoff loss over the last three postseasons, including a 5-3 win in Game 2 of this series. The two-time defending Stanley Cup champions were unable to build on the momentum of that victory, though, yielding goals to Rielly and Blackwell in the opening 10 minutes before falling behind 3-0 when Toronto took advantage of a turnover with Kampf ’s wrist shot from in front of Vasilevskiy.
Wild 5, Blues 1: Kirill Kaprizov had a goal and an assist, Marc-Andre Fleury stopped 29 shots, and visiting Minnesota beat St. Louis to take a 2-1 lead in their Western Conference playoff series.
Joel Erickson Ek had a goal and an assist, and Jordan Greenway, Mats Zuccarello and Jonas Brodin also scored as the Wild improved to 8-8 all-time in Game 3s.
Fleury, playing in a 16th consecutive Stanley Cup playoffs, earned his 92nd career playoff win. Ryan O’Reilly scored a power play goal and Ville Husso made 28 saves for the Blues.
Oilers 8, Kings 2: Edmonton scored at least two goals in every period to take back homeice advantage with a rout at Los Angeles.
Notable
Penguins goaltender Casey DeSmith will miss the rest of the postseason after he had core surgery.