Bruins survive, advance to round two

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Game 5

They took the long road to get there, but the Providence Bruins are off to the second round of the 2013 Calder Cup Playoffs after a 3-2 win over the Hershey Bears on Wednesday night.

After losing the first two games of the series on home ice, the Bruins staved off elimination three times to earn a spot in the Eastern Conference semifinals against the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins, beginning Friday.

Providence is the 10th team in AHL history to win a best-of-five series after trailing 0-2, and the third to do so after dropping the first two at home.

Jamie Tardif scored the winning goal 9:20 into the third period, setting a screen in front of Philipp Grubauer and getting a piece of Kevan Miller‘s shot from the point.

Providence held on the rest of the way, including killing off the final 31.4 seconds of the game with the Bears on a 6-on-4 advantage with a power play and their goaltender out for an extra attacker.

Hershey contolled the play over the first several minutes of the game and built a 1-0 lead on Casey Wellman‘s goal just 1:19 in.

Providence answered at 5:04, with Justin Florek getting his first goal of the series.

Jordan Caron gave the Bruins their first lead of the game with 4:52 left in the second period, and that held up until Peter LeBlanc forced a turnover behind the Providence net and Joey Crabb stepped out with the puck and slipped it past Niklas Svedberg to make it 2-2 with 16:04 to play in the third.

Svedberg (3-2) finished with 24 saves, including 10 in the third period, as he earned his third straight win. Grubauer (2-3) stopped 34 of 37 shots on the night for Hershey.