COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Viktor Arvidsson scored the decisive goal in the shootout and had three assists in the third period as the Boston Bruins rallied from a three-goal, third-period deficit to defeat the Columbus Blue Jackets 4-3 on Sunday.
It is the ninth time in franchise history the Bruins have posted a three-goal, third-period comeback, and the first since March 13, 2018, when they defeated Carolina 6-4.
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Columbus Blue Jackets' Charlie Coyle celebrates his goal against the Boston Bruins during the first period of an NHL hockey game, Sunday, March 29, 2026, in Columbus, Ohio. (AP Photo/Jay LaPrete)
Boston Bruins' Jeremy Swayman makes a save against the Columbus Blue Jackets during the first period of an NHL hockey game, Sunday, March 29, 2026, in Columbus, Ohio. (AP Photo/Jay LaPrete)
Columbus Blue Jackets' Dante Fabbro, left, and Boston Bruins' Marat Khusnutdinov chase the puck during the second period of an NHL hockey game, Sunday, March 29, 2026, in Columbus, Ohio. (AP Photo/Jay LaPrete)
Boston Bruins' David Pastrnak, right, carries the puck into the offfensive zone as Columbus Blue Jackets' Kirill Marchenko defends during the overtime period of an NHL hockey game, Sunday, March 29, 2026, in Columbus, Ohio. (AP Photo/Jay LaPrete)
Boston Bruins' Viktor Arvidsson celebrates his game-winning goal against the Columbus Blue Jackets during the shootout of an NHL hockey game, Sunday, March 29, 2026, in Columbus, Ohio. (AP Photo/Jay LaPrete)
Fraser Minten also scored in the shootout for the Bruins, who have won three straight and five of six. The victory also kept Boston in the first wild-card spot in the Eastern Conference with 92 points.
Pavel Zacha had two power-play goals — including the tying score with 11 seconds remaining — and an assist while Charlie McAvoy had a goal and an assist. Jeremy Swayman stopped 21 shots.
Boone Jenner scored in his 800th NHL game, Mason Marchment had a goal and an assist, and Charlie Coyle scored on the power-play during a three-goal first period for Columbus, Kirill Marchenko added a pair of assists.
Jet Greaves stopped 35 shots as the Blue Jackets fell to 2-3-1 in their last six. Columbus did earn a point. With 88 points, they are two ahead of Ottawa and Detroit for the East's second wild card.
Jenner was called for tripping with 42 seconds remaining. The Bruins pulled Swayman for an extra skater and tied it with 11 seconds remaining Zacha chipped it over Greaves' shoulder and blocker.
It was the Bruins' fourth-latest, game-tying goal over the last 30 years for the Bruins.
Boston made it a one-goal game on third-period scores 2:14 apart. McAvoy put in a long wrist shot from near the blue line at 6:29 and Zacha added a power-play goal.
Columbus forward Mathieu Olivier suffered an upper-body injury during the second period and did not return.
Bruins: Host Dallas on Tuesday night.
Blue Jackets: Host Carolina on Tuesday night.
AP NHL: https://apnews.com/hub/nhl
Columbus Blue Jackets' Charlie Coyle celebrates his goal against the Boston Bruins during the first period of an NHL hockey game, Sunday, March 29, 2026, in Columbus, Ohio. (AP Photo/Jay LaPrete)
Boston Bruins' Jeremy Swayman makes a save against the Columbus Blue Jackets during the first period of an NHL hockey game, Sunday, March 29, 2026, in Columbus, Ohio. (AP Photo/Jay LaPrete)
Columbus Blue Jackets' Dante Fabbro, left, and Boston Bruins' Marat Khusnutdinov chase the puck during the second period of an NHL hockey game, Sunday, March 29, 2026, in Columbus, Ohio. (AP Photo/Jay LaPrete)
Boston Bruins' David Pastrnak, right, carries the puck into the offfensive zone as Columbus Blue Jackets' Kirill Marchenko defends during the overtime period of an NHL hockey game, Sunday, March 29, 2026, in Columbus, Ohio. (AP Photo/Jay LaPrete)
Boston Bruins' Viktor Arvidsson celebrates his game-winning goal against the Columbus Blue Jackets during the shootout of an NHL hockey game, Sunday, March 29, 2026, in Columbus, Ohio. (AP Photo/Jay LaPrete)
All that talent at Arizona and Michigan. All that momentum and good vibes at UConn. And somebody has to be play the part of the unheralded “little guy.” At the Final Four next weekend, that role belongs, improbably, to Illinois.
In a sign of the times, the Illinii — a Big Ten team with more wins in the conference over the last seven seasons than any other program — will pass for something resembling Cinderella when college basketball’s biggest party kicks off in Indianapolis on Saturday.
The first challenge for coach Brad Underwood's team will be stopping a hard-charging UConn juggernaut that came from 19 points down and got a game-winner from the logo with 0.4 seconds left from an Indy native — Braylon Mullins — to make its third Final Four in the last four years.
The last two times the Huskies reached this point, they won the championship.
“It’s a UConn culture, a UConn heart,” coach Dan Hurley said. “We believe we’re supposed to win this time of year.”
All these teams do.
Arizona, led by Brayden Burries, and Michigan, with Yaxel Lendeborg, have up to nine NBA prospects between them.
The Wildcats opened as slight favorites — at plus-165 to win the championship, according to BetMGM Sportsbook. That was a shade ahead of the Wolverines, who are plus-180 after their 95-62 romp over Tennessee on Sunday.
But, in one of a few strange twists on the odds chart, the Wildcats are 1 1/2-point underdogs to Michigan in Saturday night’s second semifinal.
Illinois is a 2 1/2-point favorite over UConn and, in reality, it's the Huskies, at plus-550, who are the biggest long shot in Indy.
Even so, the fact that Illinois — the flagship university in the nation’s sixth most populous state and a school with an enrollment of nearly 60,000 — feels most like this year's out-of-nowhere underdog speaks more about the current state of college hoops than the Illini themselves.
They are a No. 3 seed — the highest number at the Final Four in two years. (UConn is a 2. Last season, all four No. 1s made it.)
This year's meeting of 1 vs. 1 — Michigan vs. Arizona — is a heavyweight matchup of power teams from power conferences meeting with everything at stake.
It’s a far cry from a mere three years ago, when mid-majors Florida Atlantic (coached by Dusty May, who now leads the Wolverines) and San Diego State crashed college basketball’s biggest party.
Since then, NIL and the transfer portal have redefined the contours of player movement, another spasm of realignment has made the big conferences bigger (Arizona, now in the Big 12, was in the Pac-12 in 2023), and the high-achieving underdogs that used to make March Madness what it is have gone into a slump.
Double-digit seeds won a total of five games in this tournament (not counting the play-in round). Two years ago, they won 11 and sent one team (N.C. State) to the Final Four.
Not surprisingly, Underwood — the coach who landed on the Illinois radar a decade ago by coaching double-digit seed Stephen F. Austin to a pair of upset wins in the tournament — views his program’s trip to the Final Four more as destiny than a once-in-a-lifetime story.
It is, however, the first trip for Illinois since 2005, when it lost to North Carolina in the title game.
“I don’t want to sound arrogant,” said Underwood, whose teams have won 96 Big Ten games since 2019-20, two more than Purdue. “I’ve never doubted us getting to a Final Four would happen. I have thought we have had other teams capable. But I also know how doggone hard it is to do it.”
The Big Ten knows all about this. Both Illinois and Michigan have a chance to deliver a title for the conference for the first time since Michigan State won it all in 2000.
The Illini, led by the so-called “Balkan Bloc” — a cohort of players with roots in Eastern Europe — have a potential NBA lottery pick of their own in guard Keaton Wagler.
Even so, the best-known name on the Illini roster might be Andrej Stojakovic, whose father, Peja, was a three-time NBA All-Star. Illinois is the third school in three years for the younger Stojakovic, who spent one season at Stanford and another at Cal before joining Underwood’s crew.
The task for Illinois: Figuring out who to key on across a roster that has five players who average double figures, led by Tarris Reed Jr.
The Wildcats-Wolverines game is a high-powered matchup of programs that have shown there’s more than one way to amass talent in the era of the unlimited transfer portal and big-money name, image and likeness deals.
Four of the five starters for Tommy Lloyd’s Wildcats began their careers in Tucson; the fifth, Big 12 player of the year Jaden Bradley, moved over from Alabama and has been with the Wildcats for three years.
Meanwhile, the top four players in minutes played at Michigan — Lendeborg, Morez Johnson Jr., Aday Mara and Elliot Cadeau — all arrived from the transfer portal.
In a twist that makes perfect sense these days, both coaches parlayed roots in the mid-majors to a spot on the sport’s biggest stage. Lloyd spent decades as a top assistant for Mark Few at Gonzaga before heading to Arizona to rebuild the program after the ouster of Sean Miller in 2021.
May led FAU to the Final Four before heading to the Michigan program that had thrived, then collapsed, under former Fab Five star Juwan Howard.
AP March Madness bracket: https://apnews.com/hub/ncaa-mens-bracket and coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness
UConn guard Braylon Mullins (24) celebrates after a basket against Duke during the second half in the Elite Eight of the NCAA college basketball tournament, Sunday, March 29, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)
UConn forward Tarris Reed Jr. (5) reacts after the team's win against Duke in the Elite Eight of the NCAA college basketball tournament, Sunday, March 29, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Abbie Parr)
Arizona forward Ivan Kharchenkov smiles on the stage after a win over Purdue in the Elite Eight of the NCAA college basketball tournament, Saturday, March 28, 2026, in San Jose, Calif. (AP Photo/Kelley L Cox)
Illinois' Zvonimir Ivisic cuts part of the net after an Elite Eight game against Iowa in the NCAA college basketball tournament Saturday, March 28, 2026, in Houston. (AP Photo/Ashley Landis)
Michigan's Yaxel Lendeborg (23) celebrates after defeating Tennessee in the Elite Eight of the NCAA college basketball tournament, Sunday, March 29, 2026, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Erin Hooley)
UConn guard Braylon Mullins, right, celebrates his game winning basket with guard Malachi Smith (0) during the second half in the Elite Eight of the NCAA college basketball tournament against Duke, Sunday, March 29, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)
