Hurricanes’ only hope against Panthers in Game 4 is a ‘no-tomorrow’ approach
The Carolina Hurricanes are overmatched.
There’s no other way to put it, is there?
If anything has been learned in the first three games of the NHL’s Eastern Conference Final, it’s that the Florida Panthers are proving to be too good, too skilled, too determined and too unfazed by anything the Hurricanes can muster up in the series.
There is no fear in the Panthers — certainly not of the Hurricanes. They have the look of a team that expects to win and does win.
For the first 40 minutes Saturday in Game 3 of the Stanley Cup playoff series, it appeared the Canes might, might, be able to find a way to steal a win, somehow, some way, and get back into it. Score a big goal late, play tight defense, pull one out.
“The game was right there for us,” Canes captain Jordan Staal said.
Instead, the Panthers turned the third period into a recurring 20-minute nightmare for the Canes, forcing too many turnovers, scoring five goals and streaking to a 6-2 win to liven up Amerant Bank Arena and take a 3-0 series lead.
“They’re tough when they get the juices going and we’re playing ‘turnover city’ there,” Staal said.
Three of the Panthers’ goals came within five seconds of a Canes turnover.
“It’s crazy how it goes,” Canes center Sebastian Aho added. “A couple of errors there and …”
Game over.
Canes defenseman Dmitry Orlov, who had a miserable, mistake-filled game, smashed his stick on the post after his turnover led to Aleksander Barkov’s first goal of the period and a 4-1 lead. Call it symbolic of the Canes’ frustration, almost bewilderment, in trying to stop the onslaught — and five goals in a nine-minute span is an onslaught.
A somber Aho was asked after the game if the Canes are shell-shocked by what has happened — losses of 5-2, 5-0 now 6-2.
Aho at first did not understand the word “shell-shocked,” but the Finnish forward understood the nature of it and what it implied about as one-sided a playoff series as you can find.
“I don’t know what to say,” Aho said. “It’s definitely not how you start the series or bounce back after a bad game. We’re still alive, and we’ll take whatever we’ve got and push it all in in the next game and see where it goes.”
Going “all in” might not be enough. The Canes haven’t been able to solve goalie Sergei Bobrovsky. They scored a couple of power-play goals Saturday but Bobrovsky has stymied the Canes much as he did in the 2023 conference final that the Panthers swept in four games.
Canes coach Rod Brind’Amour had two rookie defensemen in the lineup with Scott Morrow and Alexander Nikishin both pressed into action because of injuries to Jalen Chatfield and then Sean Walker. Forward Logan Stankoven, who had the first power-play goal Saturday, also is a rookie, as is winger Jackson Blake.
“The four rookies in the lineup can’t be some of your better players,” Brind’Amour said. “That can’t happen. There’s a couple of guys in there I don’t think came to play the way they needed to at this particular time of year.
“It can’t be Jordan Staal and (Jordan) Martinook being our best players. It can’t always be that way and they are every night. We need more out of some guys.”
Orlov, Taylor Hall and Nikishin all had minus-4 plus/minus ratings for Carolina, a numerical and metric indication of how the game went. In truth, it had to feel worse for someone like Orlov, who won a Stanley Cup ring with the Washington Capitals and has so much playoff experience,
“You’ve got to count on certain players and you can’t put it all on him,” Brind’Amour said. “Some of those mistakes, you’re not winning at this time of year when you’re making mistakes like that.
“You tip your hat. This is a great team we’re playing. … You might get away with that against another team, they may not capitalize, but the way they play …
“They’re waiting. That’s what they do. They stay on top of you and when you make that mistake, there they go.”
The Hurricanes will be back Monday for Game 4. There might be some talk of how the Edmonton Oilers fell behind 3-0 against the Panthers a year ago in the 2024 Stanley Cup final, then won three in a row to force a Game 7 for the Cup.
The Panthers won that Game 7, of course, and raised the Cup. They’re ready to try for a repeat and Panthers fans were chanting “We want the Cup!” in the final minutes Saturday as if they had finished off the series.
“We’ll go over what we did good and what we did bad, and we believe in what we have here,” Aho said. “Just gather everything we’ve got and throw it at them in the next game.
“A no-tomorrow mentality and go from there.”
That’s all they can do.
