Hurricanes-Rangers Game 6 looms. Can Carolina finally win a playoff game on the road?
The Carolina Hurricanes were so satisfied by their playoff victory Thursday that they’d love to just bottle it up and take it with them to New York.
For the Canes, there was little not to like about their 3-1 win over the Rangers in Game 5 that propelled them into a 3-2 lead in the best-of-seven series.
“That’s the kind of game I’ve been waiting for,” Canes coach Rod Brind’Amour said. “We’ve been playing OK but tonight it was good all the way around, more obviously the way we want to play. When we draw it up, it’s kind of the way we want it to be.”
The Canes controlled the game’s five-on-five play. They scored on the power play and on the penalty kill, finding ways to beat Rangers goalie Igor Shesterkin. They harassed the Rangers defensively, knocking the puck off sticks time after time, forcing turnovers, menacing them in the neutral zone and limiting shots once in the Carolina zone to help their goalie, Antti Raanta.
“That’s just the type of game we play,” Canes forward Vincent Trocheck said. “We play that hard-nosed game, play smart and above them. When we play that game I like our chances.”
But the question remains: can the Canes do it on the road? Play a hard-nosed game, be smart and win?
The Canes have had five tries, first against the Boston Bruins and now the Rangers. They’ve lost all five road games. The players and coaches have tired of answering questions about why they’re 7-0 at home, but 0-5 on the road, but the only way to end all that would be to win — once.
“You just do it,” Trocheck said. “There’s no formula for it. It kind of feels like we’ve beat that horse, not winning on the road. It’s no different, really. It’s the same game, the same team.”
Do it Saturday in Game 6 at Madison Square Garden and the second-round series is over and it will be time for the handshake line. Lose, again, at the Garden and it will be back to PNC Arena for another tense Game 7.
And all the while, with the rested Tampa Bay Lightning waiting.
The Canes do know they can count on the power play producing. Teuvo Teravainen’s snipe in the second period was Carolina’s first power-play score in the series.
“We’ve been in that funk for a long time,” Brind’Amour said.
The Canes did allow a power-play goal to New York’s Mika Zibanejad but countered that with Trocheck’s shorthanded score off a perfectly placed pass — “Incredible,” Trocheck said — from Jordan Staal.
The Canes had 27 even-strength shots to the Rangers’ 16 in the game. New York had five shots, total, in each of the first two periods and seven in the third. The Rangers’ 17 shots tied their season low.
“I didn’t think we played our game at all,” Rangers coach Gerard Gallant said. “To me, it was our worst game in the five games in the series. They pretty well dominated the game.”
The Canes’ third goal was a dagger for the Rangers. Andrei Svechnikov, the power forward from whom so much is expected, sped down the ice on a third-period breakaway and finished. No missing the net. No hitting the post. Svechnikov scored.
So it all went the Canes way this game, including a successful coach’s challenge that kept the Rangers’ Ryan Strome from scoring. It also helped that the PNC Arena crowd stayed loud throughout the game, giving the home team constant decibel reinforcement.
That won’t be the case Saturday. The crowd at MSG will be insistent on the Rangers winning Game 6 and making it a seven-game series, but the Canes believe it can be different if they repeat the good aspects of Game 5.
“We played our game and we were everywhere,” Svechnikov said. “I think we’ve got to just move that game to the next game and I think we’ll have success from that. Just go and play our game.”
This story was originally published May 27, 2022 at 5:13 AM.
