PROVIDENCE — Martins Karsums recorded a hat trick as the Providence Bruins took a 2-0 lead in their Atlantic Division finals best-of-three series with a 7-1 victory over the Portland Pirates yesterday at the Dunkin’ Donuts Center.

The P-Bruins also got goals from T.J. Trevelyan, Byron Bitz and two from Petteri Nokelainen.

The P-Bruins took the 1-0 advantage at the 11:16 mark of the opening period.

Jeff LoVecchio held the puck along the right boards and worked it into the corner for Zach Hamill.

He tossed the puck into the slot where Trevelyan was waiting. Trevelyan shot the puck high into the net for his third goal of the playoffs. Providence went ahead 2-0 at 17:35 mark when Pascal Pelletier picked up the rebound of a Sean Curry shot and sent the puck to the left faceoff circle, from where Karsums shot and scored. In the second period, The P-Bruins took a 3-0 lead when Byron Bitz scored with 20 seconds left.

In third period, the P-Bruins added at 1:26 when Karsums tallied his third goal of the playoffs with Pelletier and Vladimir Sobotka recording the assists. Portland cut the P-Bruins lead to 4-1 at 7:22. Andrew Ebbett netted his second goal of the playoffs.

Tuukka Rask stopped 11 of 12 shots he faced and Jordan Sigalet stopped all seven shots he faced for the P-Bruins. Providence went 1-for-2 on the power play and 2-for-2 on the penalty-kill.P-Bruins

7

Pirates

1

Next Game

Friday

At Portland

7:05 p.m.