Rask bails, but Halak lifts Bruins

In the Stanley Cup playoffs, it’s best to expect the unexpected.

But goalie Tuukka Rask leaving the Boston Bruins a few hours before game time? That was very unexpected.

When the Bruins announced Saturday morning that Rask was returning home to join his family, opting out of the NHL’s Return to Play postseason in Toronto, the net suddenly belonged to Jaroslav Halak for Game 3 of their playoff series in Scotiabank Arena. And Halak delivered.

The Bruins won, 3-1 in Toronto, as Halak, who shut out the Canes in the regular season, again kept his poise and focus, making 29 saves as the Bruins took a 2-1 lead in the bestof-seven series.

Only a gaffe by Halak gifted the Canes a goal in the third. Halak tried to clear the puck from behind the net, but Carolina’s

Nino Niederreiter stole it for a power-play score.

The Canes’ biggest concern after the game was an injury to forward Andrei Svechnikov with 4:38 left in regulation. Svechnikov tangled with defenseman Zdeno Chara and grabbed his right leg in pain. Charlie Coyle’s power-play goal 14 seconds into the second period was critical for the Bruins. They could play with the lead, from in front, content to get in shooting lanes, hunker down around Halak and get sticks on pucks.

When Sean Kuraly scored a short-handed goal at 1:16 of the third, redirecting a Coyle shot, the Bruins’ lead was 2-0 and that was all Halak needed. Brad Marchand, who assisted on Coyle’s goal, scored a late empty-net goal.

Coyotes 4, Avalanche 2: Darcy Kuemper stopped 49 shots and host Arizona now trails Colorado 2-1 in the best-of-seven series. The Coyotes took their first lead in the series on Derek Stepan’s first-period goal. Andre Burakovsky scored for the second straight game in the second period, but Brad Richardson put the Coyotes up 2-1 in the closing seconds. Taylor Hall scored on an empty net but Mikko Rantanen scored with 1:03 left after goalie Pavel Francouz went to the bench for an extra attacker, leaving plenty of time for Colorado’s potent offense to score the tying goal. Lawson Crouse finally put it out of reach with an empty-net goal with 5 seconds left, giving the Coyotes a huge sigh of relief and a bit of life heading into Game 4 on Monday.

“They had the puck a lot tonight, let’s be honest,” Coyotes coach Rick Tocchet said. “I thought we did a good job of our prevent defense.”

Francouz stopped 19 shots after Philipp Grubauer started the series’ first two games.