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Jeremy Perry
Bruins vs. Hurricanes Game 4 Prediction, Stanley Cup Playoff Odds
The Carolina Hurricanes-Boston Bruins series has been turned upside down. Prior to Game 3, the Bruins top goaltender Tuukka Rask announced that he’s withdrawing from the rest of the season. With Boston already without their top scorer, it appeared the Hurricanes would have an opening to take control of the series. Instead, Boston won and now leads 2-1. Can Carolina rebound on Monday?
Bruins vs. Hurricanes NHL Playoff Odds
With Saturday’s loss, the Hurricanes are now 22-15 against teams with a winning record this season. A lot of their games in the bubble have gone over – six of eight – but Saturday’s contest was just the second under.
As for Boston, the win over Carolina gave them their 12th win in their last 14 meetings in this series. We’ve now seen back-to-back unders between the teams but prior to that, eight of the last 11 had gone over.
Boston Bruins
The Bruins have been on a bit of a rollercoaster since they returned to action. After going winless in their preliminary games, some felt they would be vulnerable in the playoffs. Then they lost David Pastrnak before Game 2 and then Rask pulled out right before Game 3. However, they showed their mettle on Saturday, weathering all of the issues to piece together a 3-1 victory. They fired 39 pucks on net, won the faceoff battle and got scoring from some of their key depth pieces. Charlie Coyle had a goal and an assist while Sean Kuraly had a goal.
What was even better is that the Bruins had their best defensive outing of the series as they really stood tall around Jaroslav Halak. Halak is no slouch, having gone 18-6-6 on the season with a 2.39 GAA, and stopped 29 of 30 shots. If the Bruins continue to play this way around him, they’ll still have a really good chance at winning the Stanley Cup.
Carolina Hurricanes
The Hurricanes have to feel like they let one get away. They had a great opportunity to get ahead in the series and really put a scare into Boston. Instead, they put forth what might have been their worst effort of the series and now find themselves in a hole.
The Hurricanes special teams really let them down in Game 3 as they gave up a power play goal early in the second period, which let Boston get ahead, and then allowed a shorthanded goal later too. That put Boston in the driver’s seat for Game 3.
Looking ahead to Game 4, the Canes are likely to swap back to James Reimer as they’ve been alternating starts. However, Petr Mrazek isn’t the issue. The Canes offense will need to more in support of whoever is net as one goal won’t cut it.
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