Hurricanes get bodies back thanks to five-day break
Rod Brind’Amour played it as coy as he could as long as he could, but the decision to go back to Petr Mrazek in goal, after the way he had played right up until he was injured, ended up being an easy one for the Carolina Hurricanes coach.
Mrazek was hardly at fault in Thursday’s 5-2 loss to the Boston Bruins to open the Eastern Conference finals, stopping 23 of 27 shots with two of the Boston goals coming 28 seconds apart on the power play.
“Petr was fine,” Brind’Amour said. “We left him out to dry there at the end, but I thought he was solid.”
Mrazek left Game 2 of the second-round sweep of the New York Islanders with a lower-body injury after appearing to injure himself sliding across his crease; Curtis McElhinney stepped in and won three straight to close out the series.
Micheal Ferland also returned to the lineup after missing more than three weeks with an upper-body injury. Ferland assisted on Greg McKegg’s goal but was caught watching on Boston’s opener – Marcus Johansson stole the puck from Justin Faulk at the offensive blue line, starting a break the other way – and was minus-1 in 11:02 of ice time.
“I don’t know how much he played, he’s been out for so long,” Brind’Amour said. “He had some chances.”
BEST AGAINST BEST The key matchup of the series remains the Bruins’ high-scoring top line of Patrice Bergeron, Brad Marchand and David Pastrnak against Carolina’s best defensive line of Jordan Staal, Justin Williams and Nino Niederreiter and, presumably, Jaccob Slavin whenever possible.
Bergeron, Marchand and Pastrnak have combined for 17 goals and 35 points in 14 games, 40 percent of the Bruins’ playoff goals, although all of their points – a goal for Bergeron and two assists for Marchand – came on the power play Thursday.
“Obviously a talented line,” Staal said. “Just like any top line, you try to take away time and space and play in their end and make them play defense and all those things. We’re going to try to keep them off the scoreboard the best we can.”
The Hurricanes’ reconfigured forward lines appear constituted to deal with that line on the road, with the third line of Lucas Wallmark, Warren Foegele and Brock McGinn also capable of playing against the Bergeron line. That’s similar to what Hurricanes coach Rod Brind’Amour did late in Game 7 against Washington, putting two defensive-minded lines together to neutralize the Capitals’ attempts to find matchups for the Alex Ovechkin-Nicklas Backstrom-Tom Wilson line.
PENALTY-KILLED The Hurricanes have given up multiple power-play goals in a game three times in the playoffs and lost all three games. Boston’s five power-play opportunities were the most of any Hurricanes opponent in 12 playoff games but the Bruins’ two power-play goals were not; the Washington Capitals had three (on four opportunities) in Game 5 of that first-round series.
“Everybody knows that those penalties kind of cost us that game, but it’s fine,” Sebastian Aho said. “We’ve just got to stay out of the box and keep playing our game.”
TAILWINDS The Hurricanes had won three straight road games before Thursday’s loss. … Greg McKegg has scored in consecutive games and the Hurricanes have scored power-play goals in consecutive games after an 0-for-23 drought. … Sixteen of the Hurricanes’ 18 skaters recorded at least one shot on goal, other than Haydn Fleury and Jordan Martinook. … With Ferland and Martinook in the lineup, Patrick Brown was a healthy scratch.
This story was originally published May 9, 2019 at 5:36 PM.
