The Bruins fell just short, losing to the Tampa Bay Lightning 4-3 in overtime in round two of the Eastern Conference second round in Toronto Tuesday night.
Brad Marchand had a pair of goals while Nick Ritchie also scored for the Bruins but the Lightning always seemed to have an answer.
Ritchie’s got the Bruins started early, scoring after a scrum in front of the Lightning net put the Boston ahead 1-1. But Tampa Bay answered with a goal from Blake Coleman to tie things up 1-1 before the end of the first period.
Both teams traded goals again in the second. David Pastrnak made a nice pass on the power play and Marchand redirected the puck right into the Lightning goal to put Boston back on top. Just over a minute later, however, Nikita Kucherov evened things up again to send both teams into the second intermission tied at 2-2.
Coleman got things started in the third, taking advantage on the breakaway putting a shot on net that slipped through the legs of Bruins goalie Jaroslav Halak and gave Tampa Bay a 3-2 lead.
The Bruins top line tied things up later on, with Marchand finishing off a nice tic-tac-toe passing play with Pastrnak and Sean Kuraly to tie the game at 3-3 and eventually send things to overtime.
The overtime period was short lived. After some back and forth play the Bruins struggled to get the puck out of their own zone until Ondrej Palat buried the game winner less than five minutes into overtime.
The series is tied at 1-1. Game 3 is Wednesday at 8 p.m.
