Hurricanes take one upside the head in Game 5 loss, head back to Long Island
It was very loud, and then very quiet. All noise, then near silence — except for a few gasps in the crowd.
A player taking a puck in the face is always an unsettling sight in hockey. And when it’s your best player taking the puck in the face, it can be unnerving for a team.
So it was Tuesday for the Carolina Hurricanes when Sebastian Aho was hit in the second period of Game 5 of their playoff game against the New York Islanders. It stung Aho. It stung his team. It was enough to cause 18,680 fans at PNC Arena to momentarily freeze in place, with a low murmur in the building.
Aho was left dazed and bloodied by Pierre Engvall’s shot. As Aho was falling to the ice, the Isles’ Brock Nelson quickly dispatched the puck into the Canes’ net for a 2-0 lead.
“A bad break,” Aho said after the Isles’ 3-2 victory. “I didn’t know what hit me. It came pretty quickly there. It’s hockey. It happens.”
The Canes lost 3-2 in a game that could have ended the best-of-seven, first-round series. Instead, the Hurricanes will try to close it out again in Game 6, taking a 3-2 lead to Long island.
“But it’s supposed to be hard this time of year,” Aho said “We were ready for a long series. It’s no big deal. Just go back to Long Island and try to do what we did the other (day) there.”
Aho had a goal and two assists in leading the Canes to a 5-2 win in Game 4 at UBS Arena and a 3-1 series lead. The Canes had hoped to finish things off Tuesday, then sit back and await the winner of the series between the New York Rangers and New Jersey Devils.
But mistakes were the Canes’ undoing in Game 5. After defenseman Brent Burns was a little slow getting him the puck, Jaccob Slavin couldn’t get the puck out of the Canes’ zone, a rarity for the slick, stick-handling defenseman. The Islanders scored for a 1-0 lead.
Winger Martin Necas, usually so good with the puck in open ice, had it taken away from him in the neutral zone and the Islanders scored.
Add in the Nelson goal after Aho took one in the head …
Canes coach Rod Brind’Amour described the Aho play this way: “He’s all messed up, bounces right to their guy, taps it in. That’s kind of how the night went for us.”
Aho said he needed five stitches for the cut on the right side of his face. He was soon back in the game and scored in the third period off a Seth Jarvis pass to get the Canes within 3-2.
“Obviously, an unbelievable game by him to battle back and give us a big goal and give us a chance,” Canes captain Jordan Staal said.
The Islanders for the most part protected the net well in the third after taking a 3-1 lead. But Aho was able to beat goalie Ilya Sorokin, raising his arms and then firing a fist into the air after his goal midway through the period.
“You try to get back in the game and do your part,” Aho said. “And we had a little push there at the end.”
The Canes, with goalie Antti Raanta out of net, pressed with the extra attacker in the final 2:30 of regulation. Necas had a tip that was wide of the net and Aho had an attempt go wide. Jesperi Kotkaniemi and Shayne Gostisbehere put shots on net.
But Sorokin, who had 34 saves, and the Islanders survived it all to go back home and play another day.
“It wasn’t a terrible game. We gave them some freebies for sure,” Staal said. “That was the biggest thing. They didn’t have to work too hard for those goals and it’s hard to score goals, especially in the playoffs.
“We did a pretty good job of battling back and had a lot of chances to win the game. We’ve got to clean it up and play a little more solid going back to the Island.”
The playoff schedule will allow the Canes to take a day off the ice Wednesday to regroup. They have a practice scheduled for Thursday, then another flight to New York for Game 6 on Friday night.
Will Raanta again be in net, for a sixth straight game? Can forward Jack Drury, injured early in Game 4, return?
There are questions to be answered but for Staal, it’s a matter of the Hurricanes playing their style of game.
“We know we can be better, keep it tighter and give them nothing,” Staal said. “That’s always been foremost, giving them nothing. We didn’t do that tonight.”
This story was originally published April 26, 2023 at 6:30 AM.
