Lightning, Bruins, Avs win series

The second-seeded Lightning eliminated the seventh-seeded Blue Jackets from the Stanley Cup playoffs in five games Wednesday, rallying from a two-goal, thirdperiod deficit before securing a 5-4 victory on Brayden Point’s goal 5:12 into overtime.

Point also delivered the winner in Game 1 of the best-of-seven Eastern Conference series in Toronto, a five-overtime thriller that wound up being the fourth-longest game in NHL history.

Kevin Shattenkirk and Anthony Cirelli scored in the final eight minutes of regulation Wednesday to wipe out a 4-2 deficit. Earlier, the Blue Jackets scored four consecutive times to overcome an early two-goal deficit of its own.

Andrei Vasilevskiy stopped 37 of 41 shots for the Lightning, who were swept from the first round by the Blue Jackets last season.

“We had 422 days to think about it, but who’s counting,” said Lightning coach Jon Cooper, who insisted heading into the series that redemption wasn’t his team’s mission because both clubs have changed since last season.

“We want to advance regardless of who we’re playing,” Cooper said. “It just turned out we got a second chance, and often you don’t.”

Joonas Korpisalo had 20 saves for the Blue Jackets. Point took a pass from Nikita Kucherov in the slot before backhanding the gamewinner past the goaltender.

“Once we went down by two goals ... everybody still had the confidence we could get it done,” Shattenkirk said.

Bruins close out ’Canes: Patrice Bergeron broke a tie with 3.5 seconds left in the second period, David Pastrnak returned with two assists and the fourth-seeded Bruins beat the fifth-seeded Hurricanes 2-1 to win the Eastern Conference series in five games.

The Bruins trailed 1-0 entering the final 5 minutes of the second period before scoring twice on the power play, first from David Krejci with 4:40 left after Bergeron drew a penalty on a breakaway chance.

Then came Bergeron’s score as the teams appeared headed to the second intermission tied at 1. He tracked down a loose rebound from Pastrnak that hit the boards, then quickly sent the puck back toward the net from the left side.

The puck slipped under a standing Petr Mrazek, bounced off his left skate and straight into the net for the 2-1 lead.

Avs roll again, advance: Nathan MacKinnon had two goals and two assists, Nazem Kadri also scored twice and the Avalanche routed the Coyotes 7-1 to close out the Western Conference series in Edmonton, Alberta.

The second-seeded Avs took control of the series with a Game 4 blowout and skated into the next round with three first-period goals in Game 5.

Kadri scored two goals for the second straight game, both in the first period, and finished with five in the series.

Darcy Kuemper allowed six goals on 30 shots for the seventhseeded Coyotes before being replaced by Antti Raanta in the third.