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The Bruins' unflappable goaltender Tuukka Rask stopped all 28 shots he faced against the Blackhawks in Game 3 on Monday, boosting his series save percentage to .960.
BOSTON — The Bruins on Monday played like the relentless team that swept the Penguins from the playoffs. And they did not need overtime to prove it.
Tuukka Rask's superb goaltending and goals from Daniel Paille and Patrice Bergeron helped throttle the Blackhawks, 2-0, at TD Garden and give Boston a 2-1 advantage in the Stanley Cup finals. It was the first game in the series decided in regulation. Game 4 is Wednesday here.
"We're playing the best hockey of the season right now," Bruins Coach Claude Julien said. "That's what you've got to do to give yourself a chance to win a Stanley Cup."
The Blackhawks never seemed to recover from the loss of Marian Hossa, whose 15 playoff points are tied for the team lead, to a freak injury in warm-ups.
Paille, who notched the overtime winner in Game 2, opened the scoring as he twirled near the right circle and wristed the puck past goaltender Corey Crawford at 2 minutes 13 seconds of the second period. Later in the period Paille's speed and hustle helped set up the second goal when he burst past Chicago defenseman Niklas Hjalmarsson and drew a tripping penalty with 11 seconds still left in a Boston power play.
Zdeno Chara gave Jaromir Jagr the puck to the side of the net, and Jagr fired a pinpoint pass through the goal mouth to Bergeron at the other side. Crawford slid across and almost made the save, but Bergeron buried the chance just after the first Chicago penalty expired.
The 41-year-old Jagr, who was criticized by the television analyst Mike Milbury for being too old and too slow during Game 2, played another effective game. Though he has not scored in the postseason, he has eight assists.
"I'm not that fast anymore, but I still can see," Jagr joked when asked if he saw Bergeron open when he made the pass. "Give me some credit."
Bergeron had a mammoth game, leading both teams with seven shots on goal while winning a remarkable 24 of 28 face-offs. He was the biggest hero of the Bruins' record-setting comeback from a three-goal deficit in Game 7 against Toronto in the opening round, when he scored the game-tying goal with 51 seconds left in regulation, and the winner in overtime.
On Monday he talked about the completeness of the Bruins' effort. "It's about the little details that go unnoticed, but not by us," Bergeron said.
In the Boston goal, Tuukka Rask remained virtually unbeatable. He stopped all 28 shots, logging his third shutout in seven games and boosting his series save percentage to .960. But the Bruins' defense made sure that most of the shots he faced came from the perimeter.
Crawford stopped 33 of 35 shots.
Without Hossa, the already sputtering Blackhawks offense sputtered further. They have not scored since Patrick Sharp's first-period goal in Game 2, a span of 122:26.
Hossa seemed to hurt himself trying to take a shot in warm-ups. Chicago Coach Joel Quenneville, who would only say that it was an upper-body injury and that Hossa's status was "day to day," said that his absence was not the reason for the loss.
"It's a low-chance game — it's a low-chance series," Quenneville said. "It's hard to get A-plus chances."
Jonathan Toews, with only one goal and eight assists in the playoffs, was smothered for a third straight game by Chara and his defense partner, Dennis Seidenberg. Quenneville tried to place Toews with different sets of wings in an effort to get him free of the pair, but nothing worked.
Patrick Kane, another Blackhawks big gun, seemed tentative at times without Hossa on his line. At one point in the second period, he broke in on Rask but declined to shoot until too late, allowing Rask to make an easy save.
The Bruins' penalty killers repelled four Chicago power plays. They have not allowed a power-play goal in 26 straight attempts, stretching back to Dan Girardi's goal in Game 5 of their second-round victory over the Rangers.
Hossa was replaced by Ben Smith, who had played only one game this season for Chicago; he skated a team-low 10 minutes and was on the ice for Paille's goal.
The 6-foot-9, 255-pound Chara was also injured during warm-ups when he collided with the 6-4, 220-pound Milan Lucic, sending both crashing to the ice. Chara sustained a cut over his left eye that required stitches to close, but he played the entire game.
With 12 seconds left in the game, as the Blackhawks pulled their goalie and tried in vain to put a goal on the board, Chara wrestled with Bryan Bickell, and Chicago's Andrew Shaw threw a punch at Boston's Brad Marchand. But the Bruins held firm.
"Tonight was great," Rask said.
Keep up with the latest news on The Times's baseball blog.
Oregon State used a seven-run fourth inning to break open the game against mistake-prone Louisville and stayed alive in the College World Series in Omaha with an 11-4 victory. Louisville was eliminated after committing four errors and allowing more runs than in any other game this season.
Max Scherzer improved to 10-0 and struck out 10, Miguel Cabrera hit a two-run homer and the host Detroit Tigers beat the Baltimore Orioles, 5-1, on Monday night.
Scherzer became the first pitcher to begin a season 10-0 — with all decisions coming in starts — since Roger Clemens went 11-0 for Toronto in 1997, according to Stats L.L.C. Scherzer is the second pitcher in Detroit history to start this strong since 1909, when George Mullin was 11-0 with one victory as a reliever, the Elias Sports Bureau said in information provided by the Tigers.
Scherzer allowed one run and seven hits in six innings. Chris Davis hit his major-league-leading 24th homer in the second, but he struck out with the bases loaded in the fifth and the Orioles down by two runs.
ROYALS 2, INDIANS 1 Pinch-runner Elliot Johnson scored from third base on a wild pitch by reliever Matt Albers in the ninth inning, giving Kansas City a victory in Cleveland.
The Royals have won 11 of 13, and they moved past Cleveland into second place in the American League Central with the victory.
RANGERS 8, ATHLETICS 7 Nelson Cruz homered twice, A. J. Pierzynski drove in three runs and host Texas snapped a six-game losing streak.
Cruz's second homer was a two-run shot off Jesse Chavez (1-1) on an 0-2 pitch in the fifth inning to put Texas up by 7-6. It came right after Pierzynski's run-scoring double.
WHITE SOX 4, ASTROS 2 Dayan Viciedo's bases-loaded triple in a four-run sixth inning sent Chicago over host Houston.
The victory ended a four-game losing streak for the White Sox and allowed them to avoid being swept in a four-game series for the first time since 2008.
BLUE JAYS 2, ROCKIES 0 Maicer Izturis hit a two-run single in the eighth inning, and Toronto beat visiting Colorado behind Josh Johnson and two relievers.
Johnson struck out a season-high 10 over seven and a third innings but remained winless in seven starts with Toronto. Brett Cecil (3-0) got two outs for the victory.
PHILLIES 5, NATIONALS 4 Domonic Brown hit a run-scoring single with two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning as host Philadelphia beat Washington.
The Nationals tied it at 4-4 when Chad Tracy hit a solo homer with two outs in the ninth off closer Jonathan Papelbon (1-0). It was the first blown save for Papelbon, who had converted his previous 13 chances.
CARDINALS 5, CUBS 2 The rookie Shelby Miller pitched five shutout innings and Yadier Molina had a two-run double to lead host St. Louis.
Miller (8-4) left after cramping in his right leg. He allowed two hits and struck out five.
REDS 4, PIRATES 1 Zack Cozart and Todd Frazier hit upper-deck homers off the left-hander Francisco Liriano, and host Cincinnati moved a season-high 15 games over .500.
The Reds hit four solo homers in all, extending their best start since 1995, the last time they won a playoff series.
Cozart connected in the fourth and Frazier in the sixth off Liriano (5-3). Joey Votto and Jay Bruce connected in the eighth off Bryan Morris.
Scott Cunningham/Getty Images
The Braves' Freddie Freeman hitting the game-winning home run against the Mets on Sunday in Atlanta.
ATLANTA — The game here on Monday between the Mets and the Atlanta Braves began 3 hours 43 minutes after its scheduled start time, amid a lingering drizzle. Once under way, it was finished quickly, the teams looking eager to get a decent night's sleep before a scheduled day-night doubleheader Tuesday.
It was a lean contest that did not get its first exciting moment until its last swing. At 1:23 a.m., Freddie Freeman, the Braves' first baseman, blasted a game-ending two-run homer off Dillon Gee, sending the Mets headed to their hotel beds early Tuesday as 2-1 losers.
Gee, the starting pitcher, sparkled for the Mets until the final inning, but he could not notch the first nine-inning complete game of his career. Through eight and a third innings, he allowed five hits and one walk while striking out six.
"He pitched an outstanding game," Manager Terry Collins said. "You couldn't have asked for a better job."
Gee has been stellar on the mound since his May 30 victory at Yankee Stadium. The loss Monday ended his streak of wins at three.
Tim Hudson went seven innings for the Braves, allowing one run while scattering six hits.
The first four innings were completed within an hour, the teams' mutual hurriedness apparent. Swings came early and often, while the clock ticked past midnight.
Gee needed just 64 pitches to get through the sixth inning, and so he came up to bat during the top of the seventh, with two outs, a man on second and the game scoreless. Hudson whipped a sinker down the middle of the plate, and Gee drilled it through the left side of the infield, putting the Mets ahead, 1-0.
The Mets' offense was otherwise quiet, save for Lucas Duda, who had four hits, tying a career high.
Duda was moved to first base on Monday after spending the season playing left field. Collins seemed hesitant last week to play Duda at first base, his natural position, because he did not want to send the wrong message about Ike Davis, who was sent to the minors to work on his swing. Collins changed his mind Monday, and Duda's comfort level was plain.
Besides his four hits, he showed his aptitude around the bag, too, making a clean pick on a bounced throw from Daniel Murphy to prevent a potential game-tying run in the eighth inning.
But there was nothing anyone could do to stop the Braves in the ninth. Gee recorded a quick out but gave up a single to Justin Upton. Up came Freeman, the cleanup hitter, who drove a 2-2 slider from Gee just over the right-field fence.
It was a long day, and for the Mets, there was nothing to show for it.
John Degenkolb sprinted to victory on the fifth stage of the Giro d'Italia, after a crash near the finish, and Luca Paolini retained the overall leader's jersey. Degenkolb won in 4 hours 37 minutes 48 seconds in a 123.6-mile leg from Cosenza to Matera.
When the Rangers explored trade possibilities with the Columbus Blue Jackets as the April 3 deadline approached, they insisted that Derick Brassard be included as part of what became a multiplayer deal. Now it is clear why.
Brassard, a former first-round draft choice by Columbus in 2006, followed a big offensive effort (three assists) in Game 3 by collecting two more Wednesday night, helping the Rangers to a 4-3 victory over the Washington Capitals.
"It's incredible. His playmaking ability is so crucial," defenseman Ryan McDonagh said of Brassard's ability to suddenly spark an offense that was dormant the first two games.
"He finds space for himself, which helps other guys get open ice, and he's doing well defensively," McDonagh said. "He's doing it all right now."
Brassard wore a floppy black "Broadway hat" signifying that he had been chosen by his teammates as the most valuable player of the game. He also wore a smile that would not cease.
"When I'm on my game, I make plays," he said, "and that is what I have been doing the last two games."
After the Rangers were limited to one goal in the first two games in Washington, Brassard breathed life into the Rangers when they returned home.
He ended their 0-for-10 drought on the power play when he connected 1 minutes 23 seconds into the second period and assisted scores by Brian Boyle and Arron Asham in Monday night's 4-3 win. The three points were the most by a Rangers player making his home playoff debut since Sergei Zubov reached that total on April 17, 1994, against the Islanders.
On Wednesday night, Brassard produced a fitting encore. He fed Carl Hagelin for a blistering slap shot that extended the Rangers' margin to 2-0 at 10:13 of the second period. He asserted himself on the power play when he positioned defenseman Dan Girardi for another slap shot that whistled past goalie Braden Holtby on the stick side to snap a 2-2 tie early in the third period.
Brassard, 25, never experienced the postseason in five dismal seasons with Columbus.
"I play with emotion," he said. "I play with passion. It's a lot easier when you are playing at home."
Barton Silverman/The New York Times
Capitals center Matt Hendricks with Rangers defenseman Michael Del Zotto and goalie Henrik Lundqvist. More Photos »
The Rangers hit every Capital in sight Wednesday night. They fearlessly blocked 33 shots. They won almost twice as many face-offs as Washington. They made Alex Ovechkin irrelevant. And with the outcome in doubt late, again, the defense and goaltending were stout.
The Rangers clawed their way to a 4-3 victory at Madison Square Garden, leaving the series a best-of-three duel. Game 5 will be Friday in Washington.
"They were working harder; they were coming harder," Washington defenseman Karl Alzner said.
The Rangers' Dan Girardi broke a 2-2 tie with a power-play goal 59 seconds into the third period off a fine setup from Derick Brassard. At 6 minutes 2 seconds, Derek Stepan finished a superb three-way passing play with Ryan Callahan and Carl Hagelin to make the score 4-2.
When Mathieu Perreault deflected a long shot past Henrik Lundqvist at 7:31, the Rangers had to hold off a Capitals onslaught, as they did in Monday's victory. Lundqvist stopped Washington's last nine shots.
"You just have to make up your mind — no more goals," said Lundqvist, who earlier Wednesday was named a Vezina Trophy finalist for the fifth time in his career.
Lundqvist (27 saves) got plenty of help from his teammates, who blocked 33 shots and handed out 38 hits.
Ovechkin's stat line was illuminating. He put one lonely shot on Lundqvist; five other attempts were blocked, and another three attempts missed the net.
Everyone got into the act of shutting down one of the league's most feared scorers. His shots were blocked by Hagelin, Callahan, Anton Stralman, Taylor Pyatt and Ryan McDonagh. He was hit five times, twice by Dan Girardi and once each by Pyatt, Stralman and Ryane Clowe, who was back in the lineup after being sidelined by a suspected concussion on April 25.
"He's a pretty dynamic player for them, so we want to finish hard whenever we can," Girardi said of Ovechkin. "He's going to keep coming, and we're going to keep hitting him."
Ovechkin sidestepped a question about what the Rangers did to suffocate him.
"I have to play better," he said. "When we get a chance to play in their zone, we have to use it. I don't think tonight we had enough opportunities to score goals."
The Rangers dominated play for most of the first two periods, yet the score was tied, 2-2, at the second intermission. They blew a 2-0 lead in the second period and almost blew another two-goal advantage in the third.
"It was a game of momentum swings by both teams," Rangers Coach John Tortorella said. "We bent at certain times, but we didn't break."
Brad Richards opened the scoring into a vacant net with 3 minutes 35 seconds left in the first period. Capitals goalie Braden Holtby had come out to clear a puck, only to have Pyatt knock down his clearance. The puck eventually fell to Richards, who cashed in the gift goal.
Hagelin made the score 2-0 midway through the second period with a slap shot off a setup from Brassard, who had two assists on the night. Hagelin had a goal and two assists.
At that point, the Rangers were outshooting Washington by 21-8, and they seemed in control. But Perreault halved the Capitals' deficit at 13:08, with the first of his two goals.
And with just 18 seconds left in the second, Troy Brouwer tied the score after bursting from the sideboards into the slot and backhanding a shot past Lundqvist.
At the end of the second period, though, Jason Chimera was sent off for interference, setting the table for Girardi's go-ahead power-play goal in the first minute of the third.
The Rangers went 1 for 4 on the power play and killed both Capitals power plays. They held a 34-19 face-off advantage.
Holtby finished with 30 saves.
The home team has won every game in the series so far, and every game has been close.
"It was close again," Lundqvist said. "A big win for us, though — much, much needed. They just kept coming back, but we did so many good things. You can see the confidence. We made a lot of good plays, and I thought we deserved this one."
SLAP SHOTS
Defenseman Marc Staal did not dress for the game, a surprising absence for the Rangers. Staal gave the team and its fans an emotional lift by returning to action for Game 3 after he had missed 29 games with a serious injury to his right eye, which was struck by a puck on March 5. Still experiencing blurred vision in that eye, he played for more than 17 minutes and went minus-1 but was generally steady. Staal participated in the morning skate but was not present for the pregame warm-ups. The Rangers did not provide an explanation for his absence. ... Steve Eminger took Staal's place alongside Michael Del Zotto.
DENVER — Before Wednesday's game, Joe Girardi made history of sorts by becoming the first Yankee manager since Casey Stengel in 1957 to put a pitcher eighth in the batting order. At the time, it seemed like a radical move, but then during the game he did something even more odd.
With his roster depleted by injury, Girardi put Vernon Wells at third base for the first time in Wells's career, and then watched as Wells made a perfect defensive play in the ninth inning to help preserve a memorable 3-2 victory over the Colorado Rockies.
"You have fun with this game," Wells said, "and that was one of the cooler moments of my career."
It was even better, he claimed, than the two-run homer he hit in the first inning, his seventh, or the winning run he scored in the top of the ninth on an infield hit by Brennan Boesch. Wells has been a revelation for the Yankees this year, and this may go down as the Vernon Wells game.
An outfielder his entire 15-year career, Wells had never played third base at any level, including little league, he said. He did play a little shortstop. He was an outfielder by trade at Bowie High School in Arlington, Tex., but in his senior year, he was forced to move in to short when the entire infield — all four members — failed to meet academic requirements.
"Report cards came out, and they all failed," he said. "It's a true story."
The circumstances that forced Wells to third Wednesday were nearly as extreme. Eduardo Nunez was unavailable because of a lingering strain in his left rib cage, so when third baseman Chris Nelson (who is filling in for the injured Kevin Youkilis) was due up with the base loaded and one out against right-handed reliever Rafael Betancourt, Girardi called upon Travis Hafner to pinch hit.
But Girardi had no more infielders for the bottom of the ninth. He considered using catcher Austin Romine at third, but decided to go with Wells, whom he had seen take ground balls at third during batting practice earlier this season. Wells said he takes grounders as a way to keep his hands active and to practice catching bouncing balls. And he uses his own glove, a small outfielder's mitt.
Knowing his bench was short, Girardi told Wells before the game that he might use him at third, and when Hafner came to the plate in the ninth, Wells was a runner on third, and he immediately knew he would go into the game.
"Panic set in," he said with a laugh.
Hafner struck out, but Boesch hit a ground ball to third and beat the throw to first on an extremely close play. Jayson Nix was caught in a rundown, but Wells had scored the go-ahead run.
In the bottom of the inning, Wells said he got chills after the brief infield warm-up when he was able to throw the ball to closer Mariano Rivera.
"Throw the ball around, and I look up, and I'm throwing the ball to Mariano Rivera," he said. "It's a cool feeling."
It would get cooler. With one out, Carlos Gonzalez hit a bouncer to Wells's left, and he threw a strike to first baseman Lyle Overbay. Two batters later, Wilin Rosario popped out to end the game for Rivera's 12th save.
Asked about shifting Wells to third, combined with batting the pitcher eighth, Girardi seemed to take umbrage at what he thought was the suggestion that he was making moves without a strategic approach.
"It's not like I'm just going like this against the wall," he said, throwing his arm up over his head. "It's thought out. The situation came up where I could use Haf, and we pitched extremely well. That's why we won this game tonight."
Asked if it was personally gratifying, considering how it worked out, Girardi said, "Yeah, but the guys got the job done, not me."
Before the game, Girardi explained his decision to bat Phelps eighth and Romine ninth, which he said had to do with getting Robinson Cano as many at-bats as possible with runners on base in front of him.
"It's not like I'm trying to reinvent the game," he said. "It's not like I'm trying to make something up. I'm trying to maximize our pinch-hitters and the people I have in my lineup. That's the bottom line. So, how do you do that?"
The answer to that question was given to him six years earlier by one of the game's noted innovators. In 2007, when Girardi was a television broadcaster and he was working a game involving St. Louis, he asked the Cardinals' manager then, Tony La Russa, why he chose to bat the pitcher eighth in the lineup. The explanation made sense to Girardi, and he tucked it away for a rainy day.
That wet day arrived Wednesday at Coors Field as Girardi joined a small group of managers who have defied tradition. With rain lashing down on the white tarp in front of him, Girardi sat in the visitors dugout and explained why Phelps was batting eighth.
It was not something Girardi was particularly eager to do. He had managed many interleague games without the use of a designated hitter and never did it before this.
But he said a confluence of events existed Wednesday — including the Yankees' lack of a right-handed pinch-hitter, their heavy reliance on Cano, who batted second Wednesday, and the Rockies' reliance on their two left-handed relief pitchers — that made this the right moment.
According to the Elias Sports Bureau, the last time a Yankees pitcher batted eighth in the starting lineup was Aug. 28, 1957, when Casey Stengel put Don Larsen in the No. 8 spot and had second baseman Bobby Richardson bat ninth. There were not so many strategic reasons for Stengel then. Larsen was a solid hitter, and so was Tommy Byrne, who also hit eighth at times.
La Russa brought back the tactic decades later, and Wednesday, Girardi reintroduced it to the Yankees for the first time in 56 years.
"Sometimes you have to do some things that are maybe more unorthodox," Girardi said. "But you have to do it."
At the time, he was talking about the lineup. Later in the game, those words would apply to his brand new third baseman, too.
