SUNRISE, Fla. — Taylor Hall had a goal and an assist, Linus Ullmark stopped 28 shots and the Boston Bruins topped the Florida Panthers 4-2 in Game 3 of their Eastern Conference first-round series on Friday night.
Charlie Coyle, David Pastrnak and Nick Foligno also had goals for Boston, which reclaimed home-ice advantage and took a 2-1 lead in the series. Dmitry Orlov had a pair of long outlet passes that became assists for the Bruins.
Alex Lyon stopped 23 of 26 shots for Florida, the Pastrnak goal with 11:28 remaining chasing him and having Florida send in Sergei Bobrovsky. And that suggests the Panthers have a big decision to make on a starting netminder before Game 4 in Sunrise on Sunday afternoon.
Gustav Forsling and Sam Reinhart had goals for Florida, which didn’t get anything past Ullmark until 5:19 remained. Boston improved to 50-3-0 this season when allowing no more than two goals.
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The Bruins were again without captain Patrice Bergeron, out with an upper-body injury. He won’t play in Game 4 either, with the Bruins believing he will be ready to play when the series returns to Boston for Game 5 next week.
Florida is built to let shots fly. There have been three teams in NHL history to take more than 3,000 shots in a season — the 1970-71 Bruins are one of them, and the other two are the 2021-22 Panthers, and the 2022-23 Panthers.
The Bruins held Florida to four shots in the second — matching the Panthers’ fourth-lowest total for any period this season.
Islanders goaltender Ilya Sorokin blocks the shot of Hurricanes right wing Stefan Noesen, right, during the first period of Friday’s first-round playoff game in Elmont, N.Y.
ISLANDERS 5, HURRICANES 1: Kyle Palmieri and Matt Martin scored 44 seconds apart late in the third period and New York beat visiting Carolina to cut its series deficit to 2-1.
Casey Cizikas, Scott Mayfield and Anders Lee also scored as the Islanders got four goals in a 2:18 span late — the fastest four goals in Stanley Cup playoff history — to pull away.
Ilya Sorokin stopped 30 shots for New York, which had a pair of one-goal losses in the first two games at Carolina.
The Hurricanes had their chances early with three power plays over an 111/2-minute stretch carrying over from the final minute of the first period into the middle of the second, but the team mustered only three shots on goal during the advantages.
Jesper Fast scored for Carolina and Antti Raanta stopped 32 shots.
Game 4 is back at the UBS Arena on Sunday.
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