Bruins stay alive with Game 3 win


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Game 3

In his first game ever as visitor at Giant Center, Chris Bourque scored two goals and added an assist to lead the Providence Bruins to a 5-1 win over the Hershey Bears in Game 3 of the Eastern Conference quarterfinals on Saturday night.

The Bears still lead the series, two games to one, with Game 4 set for Sunday (5 ET, AHL Live).

Michael Latta scored off a rebound of a Nicolas Deschamps shot just 3:44 into the game, giving Hershey an early 1-0 lead.

But Bourque, a three-time Calder Cup winner, 2010 playoff MVP and 2011-12 AHL scoring champion during his time with the Bears, tied the score at the 8:11 mark with a deflection past Philipp Grubauer.

Bobby Robins scored his first goal of the series at 3:06 of the second period, giving the Bruins the lead for good. Bourque then set up Jamie Tardif for a power-play goal at 10:19, and Providence killed off an extended Hershey power play — including two full minutes of 5-on-3 time — to take a 3-1 lead into the second intermission.

Bourque got his second goal and third point of the evening at 4:07 of the third period, and Carter Camper capped the scoring at 8:02.

Niklas Svedberg, the Baz Bastien Award winner as the AHL’s top goaltender in the regular season, bounced back after allowing 10 goals in the series’ first two games and turned aside 30 of 31 shots for his first AHL playoff win.

Grubauer finished with 22 saves for Hershey.