Raleigh, N.C. — The Carolina Hurricanes turned their last stand into a season-extending victory. Incredibly, it was the struggling power play that got them there.
Brady Schei scored on a power play with 3:11 left as the Hurricanes beat the New York Rangers 4-3 on Saturday night, completing a Game 4 sweep of their second-round playoff series.
Skei’s shot from the point came off a feed from Tuevo Teravainen, with the puck taking the top-right corner of the goal past Igor Shesterkin and blasting into the net. It was Carolina’s first goal with the man advantage in 17 tries in the series, and it finally gave Carolina the lead on a night when the Hurricanes squandered a two-goal lead.
However, never mind. The Hurricanes survived to fight another day in the NHL playoffs.
“I don’t care about it,” coach Rod Brind’Amour said when asked whether there was any added significance to getting a winner with the man advantage. “Not tonight. We just have to get WS this time of year.”
The Rangers get another close chance with a 3-1 lead on Monday night when the series returns to Madison Square Garden for Game 5.
Evgeny Kuznetsov, Stefan Noesen and Sebastian Aho each scored a goal for Carolina, while Frederik Andersen made 22 saves as the Hurricanes attempt to become the fifth team to win a playoff series since coming back from a 3-0 deficit in 2014. For the first time since.
It all started with Carolina showing great momentum in the first period, leading 2-0 and building a 3-1 lead.
“Obviously we played a lot of aggression,” said Aho, who finished Jake Guentzel’s feed from near the slot for a 3-1 lead with 4:31 left in the first period. “We did what we needed to do. It was a strong start. We want to do it again (in Game 5).”
The Hurricanes made changes to their power-play unit to move Skae into the top group. And about 30 seconds after a tripping penalty by Ryan Lindgren, Skjei converted the winner and ran to embrace Teravainen and Aho, prompting the tense home crowd to erupt in joy, even though Skjei instead chanted “of course the celebration. ” felt it.
“I feel like going into every game you try to feel confident and feel like you can be the guy to do it,” Skeie said. “Obviously it doesn’t happen every night or that often. But that’s kind of our mentality going forward, just win the day.”
Will Quayle, Barclay Goodrow and Alexis Lafreniere scored for the Rangers, while Shesterkin made 27 saves.
“It’s tough, we dug ourselves a hole early,” Rangers coach Peter Laviolette said. “I don’t think it was because we weren’t ready to play. …We have to come out a little brighter than that.
“We were competing, we were working, we were trying to do our job aggressively. But there were some things defensively that I thought we could have done a little better in the first period.”
New York had won its first seven playoff games after defeating Washington in Round 1 and winning the first three games of this series, and had a chance to become the first team to go 8–0 in the postseason after Edmonton won its first nine games. . Way to claim the Stanley Cup in 1985.
Lafreniere had it within reach of the Rangers when he took advantage of an error by Anderson, who let his left skate sail past the post as Lafreniere skated in from the right. Lafreniere bounced the puck off Anderson’s left hip as he skated toward the boards, then put it into the net for a 3-3 tie at 2:04 of the third period, blowing the home crowd away .
The series began with the potential for heavy drama, given that the Metropolitan Division winner Rangers also won the President’s Trophy as the league’s top regular season team, while the Hurricanes – in the playoffs for the sixth consecutive season – finished three points behind and Entered. As of 2017, the NHL is the playoff favorite to win the Stanley Cup.
The Rangers won 4–3 in both Games 1 and 2 – the latter in double overtime – and then won Game 3 in Raleigh 3–2 on Artemi Panarin’s OT score. But the Rangers were coming off a huge victory in the special teams battle, defeating the Hurricanes 5-0 with four power-play goals and one shorthanded score, while Carolina’s No. 2-ranked regular season power play scored 15 on Saturday. Entered at 0 out of . Chain.
Carolina came up blank on its first power play, but Skae finally gave the Hurricanes a much-needed breakthrough.
“I thought the penalty kill was still good,” Laviolette said. “He took a shot from the point, he hammered it, it had eyes. It was a tough corner shot, traffic in front of the net. There was a lot going on.”
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