Bruins vs. Hurricanes Game 3: Winners and losers from Bruins win

The Boston Bruins take a 2-1 series lead over the Carolina Hurricanes without Tuukka Rask or David Pastrnak.

The Boston Bruins and Carolina Hurricanes continue to deliver as advertised in their first round series, as the Bruins take back the lead in the series with a 3-1 win in Game 3 without their top goal scorer David Pastrnak or starting goalie Tuukka Rask. Here are the winners and losers from Game 3.

Winner: Jaroslav Halak

One of the most unexpected stories since the NHL arrived in the hub city bubbles surfaced just hours before Game 3, as it was announced that Tuukka Rask was opting out of the playoffs in order to return home to his family. This left backup goalie Jaroslav Halak in charge of backstopping the Bruins for the rest of the postseason, and Halak came through in Game 3.

Halak stopped 29 of 30 shots in his first true playoff start since 2015 while a member of the New York Islanders. He kept the Bruins in the game during a poor first period where the Bruins were outshot 15-7, stopping all 15 and allowing the Bruins to get on the board first early in the second period on a powerplay goal from Charlie Coyle.

It wasn’t a perfect night for Halak, as he gave away a chance at a shutout with a terrible turnover on a clearing attempt to Nino Niederreiter to cut the Bruins lead to one with plenty of time in the third period. Luckily, Halak and the Bruins defense shut Carolina down the rest of the way.

Loser: Andrei Svechnikov goes down with a brutal leg injury

It’s bad enough that the Hurricanes couldn’t take advantage of the Bruins not having Pastrnak or Rask in Game 3, but now they could be losing one of their best offensive stars in Andrei Svechnikov after needing to be helped off the ice following a painful leg injury.

While battling with Zdeno Chara in front of the net late in the third period, Svechnikov fell awkwardly on his right leg as both his knee and ankle twisted in an unnatural direction. Svechnikov needed to be helped off the ice, and couldn’t put any pressure on his right leg.

Ouch.

Hurricanes head coach Rod Brind’amour had no update on the severity of Svechnikov’s injury after the game, but added that it “certainly didn’t look good”.

The 20-year-old Svechnikov is the Hurricanes leading goal scorer so far in these playoffs with four goals, and second in points behind Sebastian Aho. Only three other players have scored more than one goal so far in these playoffs for Carolina. Losing him for any amount of time would devastating for Hurricanes in this series, and if the injury really is as bad as it looks, he could be out for a long time.

Winner: Bruins special teams

After failing to score a goal in their previous four games after entering the Toronto bubble, the Bruins powerplay has seemingly once again found it’s rhythm after scoring two goals in Game 2 and another one from Charlie Coyle in Game 3 to open the scoring.

When the Hurricanes had an opportunity to tie the game in the third period, the Bruins turned the tables with a shorthanded goal from Sean Kuraly deflecting a shot from Coyle, which eventually held up as the game winner.

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The Bruins need to keep their special teams rolling in order to eventually get past the Hurricanes in this series, and if they can continue to do so without Pastrnak in the lineup, it’ll be a good sign of things to come.

Game 4 of this series will take place on Monday at 8 p.m EST, where the Bruins will look to take a commanding 3-1 series lead, while the Hurricanes will look to respond and tie this series.