TORONTO – The opening game of the Boston Bruins-Carolina Hurricanes NHL playoff series has been postponed to Wednesday morning after the Tampa Bay Lightning and Columbus Blue Jackets tied 2-2 at Scotiabank Arena after four hours of overtime on Tuesday.
The Bruins-Hurricanes game was originally scheduled to start at 8 p.m. ET. It will now start at 11am on Wednesday
The Lightning-Blue Jackets game started at 3 p.m. and ended the fourth overtime at around 8.45 p.m.
It finally ended up at 9:22 p.m. Brayden Point scored fifth overtime for Tampa at 10:27 AM to give Blitz a 3-2 win. It was the fourth longest game in the history of the NHL playoffs.
The Tampa-Columbus competition was the opening game of the first full playoff round.
The second NHL game of the day between the Calgary Flames and the Dallas Stars in Edmonton began at 5:30 pm and ended long before the Tampa-Columbus conclusion.
All postseason games in the NHL will not be played in front of fans during the COVID-19 pandemic in Toronto and Edmonton.
In the first round, the league had invested at least 4 1/2 hours between the start of the games in each city to avoid delays.
However, there are only four hours between the start of Boston-Carolina and a game by the New York Islanders-Washington Capitals (3 p.m.) on Wednesday in Toronto.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published on August 11, 2020.
