Former Bruins defenseman Dougie Hamilton, thought to be lost until next season when he fractured his tibia in January, scored at 8 minutes, 30 seconds of Thursday night’s third period to give the Hurricanes a 3-2 victory over the B’s and tie the teams’ best-of-7 Eastern Conference playoff series at 1-1.

Game 3 is at noon on Saturday at Scotiabank Arena in Toronto, and the Bruins may not know until then if they’ll have their top scorer in the lineup. They [...]

Former Bruins defenseman Dougie Hamilton, thought to be lost until next season when he fractured his tibia in January, scored at 8 minutes, 30 seconds of Thursday night’s third period to give the Hurricanes a 3-2 victory over the B’s and tie the teams’ best-of-7 Eastern Conference playoff series at 1-1.

Game 3 is at noon on Saturday at Scotiabank Arena in Toronto, and the Bruins may not know until then if they’ll have their top scorer in the lineup. They played Game 2 without winger David Pastrnak, a 95-point scorer and NHL co-leader with 48 goals, who was deemed "unfit to play."

Pastrnak, who scored a goal and fed Patrice Bergeron for Wednesday’s Game 1 winner in the second overtime, was replaced by Anders Bjork, who moved up from the third line. Bjork skated with Bergeron and Brad Marchand throughout the Bruins’ July 13-25 camp at Warrior Ice Arena, while Pastrnak was fulfilling quarantine restrictions related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Karson Kuhlman replaced Bjork on the third line, with left wing Nick Ritchie and center Charlie Coyle.

Ironically, Pastrnak’s replacement on the Bruins’ struggling power play helped them snap the 0 for 13 string they carried into the game.

David Krejci, who lined up in Pastrnak’s customary left circle position, gave the Bruins their first 1-0 lead since resuming the season with 4:19 left in the first period. Krejci, who also scored in Game 1, took advantage of Hurricanes forward Jordan Staal, who didn’t have a stick, to get into position for a wrist shot from the high slot that got through screens set by Bergeron and Jake DeBrusk and beat James Reimer.

Reimer (33 saves) played Game 2 after Petr Mrazek made 36 saves in Wednesday’s loss. The Hurricanes also added veteran forward Justin Williams, who didn’t dress on Wednesday, and added defenseman Sami Vatanen to the lineup over Joel Edmunson, who scored a goal on Wednesday.

The Bruins held that 1-0 lead until late in the second, when they surrendered a pair of goals within 1:28 to fall behind, 2-1. They were back even before intermission, though.

Teuvo Teravainen’s power-play goal -- the first surrendered by the Bruins’ this postseason -- made it 1-1 at 15:13 of the second. A failure to clear the puck out of the defensive zone at 16:41 resulted in Andrei Svechnikov beating Tuukka Rask (23 saves) from 15 feet to give the Hurricanes the 2-1 lead.

The Bruins’ power play struck again in the dying seconds of the period, though. Marchand scored with 4.4 seconds left, after Bergeron’s diagonal pass from the right circle hit the far post and popped out to Marchand, who scored his first goal this postseason.

Krejci collected his second assist of the night.