Hurricanes could be down two of top three regular-season goal-scorers for Game 3
Vincent Trocheck was still being examined Wednesday morning after his high-speed ankle-to-ankle collision with Warren Foegele late in Tuesday’s second period, Carolina Hurricanes coach Rod Brind’Amour said.
Trocheck went straight to the bench, unable to put any weight on his right leg, and lasted all of one 16-second shift in the third period before departing for good.
“That’s another challenge we’re going to have to overcome,” Brind’Amour said.
With Nino Niederreiter not traveling with the team to Florida, the Hurricanes go into Game 3 at the Tampa Bay Lightning without their second- and third-leading goal-scorers from the regular season having yet to score a five-on-five goal in a pair of 2-1 home losses to open the series. Only Sebastian Aho (24) had more goals than Niederreiter (20) or Trocheck (17) going into the playoffs.
“It’s not nice to see your buddy go down,” Aho said. “That’s been all year for us. We’ve been missing players, big players, a lot of players at the same time. It’s always the next man up.”
Perspectives
The Hurricanes outshot the Lightning 70-45 in the two games in Raleigh, and each coach had a very different perspective on the 32-15 disparity Tuesday night.
Brind’Amour: “That’s why these are harder losses. Game 1, I thought if we weren’t the better team, we were close. ... (Tuesday) felt like a very similar game from my standpoint, so what more can you do? We’re going to try to tweak some things and get better here and there and adjust a little bit. But if you had said to me we’re going to give up 15 shots, or 20, in two games against the Tampa Bay Lightning, I’d say that’s pretty good.”
Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper: “People will look at the shot clock and sit there and say, ‘Wow, look they plainly got outshot.’ But we look at, were they quality shots? Could our goalie see them? That’s what we want to do for him. Let him see shots, clear rebounds and when we do break down he’s there for us.”
Road warriors
The Lightning have opened both of their playoff series on the road and won all four opening games: The first two games at the Florida Panthers in the first round, and now the first two games in Raleigh in the second.
“I just think we know how important it is to win on the road in the playoffs, how tough it is, especially in a building like this,” Lightning forward Steven Stamkos said. “It was rocking the last two games so to come in here and get both wins was huge. We know how hard it is to win this time of the year, period, so to come in here it’s a huge lift for us. We get to come home in front of our fans who will be just as rowdy.”
The last Stanley Cup winner to lead 2-0 in each of its first two series the next spring: The Pittsburgh Penguins in 2017, who went on to repeat as champions.
Tailwinds
Both of Andrei Svechnikov’s goals in the postseason have come with one net empty — the first to seal the Game 1 win over the Nashville Predators, and Tuesday night’s with Alex Nedeljkovic on the bench for an extra attacker. … One area of success for the Hurricanes in this series: They have allowed only one power-play goal on five Tampa chances. The Lightning connected at a 40 percent clip in the first round. … The Hurricanes have allowed the first goal in seven of eight playoff games. They scored first in five of eight playoff games in 2020.
This story was originally published June 2, 2021 at 2:41 PM.
