So much for the regular season: Hurricanes 3, Rangers 2
The Game
The Rangers were fortunate to be trailing only 1-0 after one.
Lundqvist was beaten on Carolina’s second shot of the game minutes later by Vincent Trocheck. However, his back-hander from the slot sailed over “The King’s” shoulder, hit the crossbar, and stayed out.
By the first intermission, Carolina had 12 shots on goal on 25 attempts, while the Rangers mustered just four pucks on target in nine bids.
The Rangers played slightly better in the second period, but not before Sebastian Aho redirected a beautiful centering feed from Andrei Svechnikov past a helpless Lundqvist for a power-play goal and 2-0 Carolina lead 6:14 into the stanza.
Nearly eight minutes later, Zibanejad redirected a beautiful pass to from Ryan Lindgren from the top of the left circle, beating Mrazek glove-side and pulling New York to within a goal.
Less than a minute later, the Rangers got a power play when Kaapo Kakko used his size and speed to force Sami Vatanen into a tripping penalty. Chris Kreider had the best opportunity during the man advantage but missed the net from the slot near the hash marks.
Trailing 2-1 after two, the Rangers got into more penalty trouble near the midpoint of the third period, when Greg McKegg couldn’t stop quick enough to avoid hitting Nino Niederreiter into the boards from behind. The official call was charging. Regardless, Carolina capitalized when Martin Necas’ shot from the left circle caromed off Marc Staal’s skate between Lundqvist’s legs and in for a 3-1 lead.
Staal got it back for New York with a short-handed goal with 1:54 remaining after Quinn put Artemi Panarin on the penalty kill (something he normally doesn’t do).
From there, the Canes played keep away for the duration of the power play, leaving the Rangers with about a minute to try and tie.