The Boston Bruins stunned the hockey world two hours before Saturday’s Game 3 when they announced that goaltender Tuukka Rask was leaving the bubble and returning to Boston to be with his family. It was a shocking announcement, one that would leave the defending conference champions without a cornerstone player.
By the end of Game 3, the Carolina Hurricanes had joined them with an unexpected, shocking absence.
An apparent knee or ankle injury to Andrei Svechnikov late in the third period cast a pall over an already dispiriting game.