3 Keys: Hurricanes at Rangers, Game 2 of Eastern 2nd Round
Carolina must get more pucks on net to even series; New York aims to keep special teams humming
© Jared Silber/NHLI via Getty Images
NEW YORK -- The Carolina Hurricanes will try to avoid going into a 2-0 hole before playing a home game in the Eastern Conference Second Round when they play Game 2 against the New York Rangers at Madison Square Garden on Tuesday.
The Rangers were victorious 4-3 in Game 1 on Sunday, thanks to a power play that was 2-for-2 and a penalty kill that was 5-for-5.
"We've got to be a little bit better in all areas, maybe one area in particular," Hurricanes coach Rod Brind'Amour said. "They've got a great team over there and they had to make high end plays on the goals. I mean, that's the other thing, that's part of it. We just have to find a way to be that much better."
New York has won five games in a row to start the Stanley Cup Playoffs, allowing 2.00 goals per game, going 44.4 percent on the power play and 90.9 percent on the penalty kill.
"Guys have been talking about it throughout the playoffs, but even throughout the year that we're trying to build something for this time of the year," Rangers center Mika Zibanejad said. "Adversity is going to come throughout this series and this playoffs and the way we've been able to handle the adversity throughout the regular season has taught us a lot.
"That's something we feel good about, but at the same time throughout this whole last week and a half to two weeks, it's been 'Just focus on the game we have at hand' and that's [Tuesday]. We don't look much further than that."
The Rangers' top six forwards accounted for all four goals and 10 points in Game 1, led by Zibanejad's two goals and an assist. Center Vincent Trocheck had a goal an assist.
Zibanejad has 10 points (three goals, seven assists) in five playoff games, with at least two points in each of the past four. Trocheck has scored a goal in four straight games.
"[Trocheck] does everything for us. Mika does everything for us," Rangers forward Chris Kreider said. "Face-offs, responsible in his own zone, detailed, contributes offensively. We're really lucky to have two centermen like that."
The Rangers are 24-14 all time in a best-of-7 series when winning Game 1, including 14-7 when starting at home. They're 12-4 all time when they win the first two games; 7-2 when winning the first two at home.
The Hurricanes are 6-10 all time when losing Game 1, including 3-7 when opening on the road. They're 2-8 when they lose the first two games; 1-6 when it happens on the road.
They have lost in five games or less each of the past three times they dropped the first two games of a best-of-7 series; 2023 Eastern Conference Final against the Florida Panthers (sweep), 2021 second round against the Tampa Bay Lightning (lost in five), 2019 Eastern Conference Final against the Boston Bruins (sweep).
Here are 3 keys for Game 2:
1. Special teams, obviously
The Rangers won Game 1 because of their power play and penalty kill.
They needed 23 seconds of power play time to score two goals; nine seconds on the first man-advantage and 14 seconds on the second.
"First goal, they had a backhand pass, spin-o-rama, backhand pass, spin-o-rama, backhand pass; sometimes you tip the cap," Carolina defenseman Jaccob Slavin said. "But at the same time, we are not going to come off what we do and kill penalties. Why we were successful all year long on the kill is because of how we kill penalties. That's not something we have to change."
New York also killed all five of Carolina's power plays, allowing four shots on goal while generating two in 8:06 of short-handed ice time.
"We have to find a way to get more looks," Brind'Amour said. "We would like to have opportunities when you get your power plays. They did a nice job of blocking shots, pressuring us at the right time. The execution wasn’t quite where it needed to be."
2. Rangers must stay out of box
As good as their penalty kill was in Game 1 and has been in their five playoff games, the Rangers can't keep taking penalties at the rate they are and expect the PK to continue to deliver as it has.
At some point, the Hurricanes will break through. They had the No. 2 ranked power play in the NHL this season (26.9 percent) and went 5-for-15 (33.3 percent) in the first round.
New York has been short-handed 22 times in five games, an average of 4.4 times per game, the most among any team in the playoffs.
"Obviously, we want to stay out of the box as much as we can but we don't want to lose that physical edge," Rangers defenseman Ryan Lindgren said. "I think that's what makes us a successful team is the way we compete and how hard we are to play against. When we did take those penalties, the penalty kill did a great job of blocking shots, getting pucks out and that's something that's going to be huge in this series for sure."
3. Hurricanes need to get more shots through
Carolina is a heavy shot volume team, averaging 33.8 shots on goal per game in the first round after finishing third in the regular season with 33.3 shots on goal per game.
The Hurricanes had 25 shots on goal in Game 1. They had 29 shot attempts that were blocked and missed the net on 18 more.
The Rangers will happily allow 25 shots on goal per game, even if it means they're blocking almost 30.
Carolina's challenge in Game 2 is finding ways to get more shots to the net.
"They just fire a lot of pucks from the exterior and we're going to have to get in front of them," Rangers coach Peter Laviolette said. "A lot of them are just kind of hoisted in there, wristed in there, and the ones we can knock down we'll knock down."
Hurricanes projected lineup
Jake Guentzel -- Sebastian Aho -- Andrei Svechnikov
Jordan Martinook -- Jack Drury -- Martin Necas
Teuvo Teravainen -- Jordan Staal -- Seth Jarvis
Jesperi Kotkaniemi -- Evgeny Kuznetsov -- Stefan Noesen
Jaccob Slavin -- Brent Burns
Brady Skjei -- Tony DeAngelo
Dmitry Orlov -- Jalen Chatfield
Frederik Andersen
Pyotr Kochetkov
Scratched: Jackson Blake, Brendan Lemieux, Maxime Comtois, Scott Morrow, Bradly Nadeau, Spencer Martin, Dylan Coghlan, Ryan Suzuki, Ronan Seeley
Injured: Jesper Fast (upper body), Brett Pesce (lower body)
Rangers projected lineup
Chris Kreider -- Mika Zibanejad -- Jack Roslovic
Artemi Panarin -- Vincent Trocheck -- Alexis Lafreniere
Will Cuylle -- Alex Wennberg -- Kaapo Kakko
Jimmy Vesey -- Barclay Goodrow -- Matt Rempe
Ryan Lindgren -- Adam Fox
K'Andre Miller -- Braden Schneider
Erik Gustafsson -- Jacob Trouba
Igor Shesterkin
Jonathan Quick
Scratched: Zac Jones, Chad Ruhwedel, Jonny Brodzinski, Louis Domingue, Adam Edstrom, Filip Chytil
Injured: Blake Wheeler (lower body)
Status report
The Hurricanes did not hold a morning skate Tuesday. During practice Monday, they showed the same forward lines and defense pairs from a 4-3 loss in in Game 1 on Sunday. ... . The Rangers held an optional morning skate Tuesday and Rempe was the only player who played Game 1 to participate. They also showed the same forward lines and defense pairs in practice Monday that they used in Game 1.
NHL.com senior director of editorial Shawn P. Roarke and staff writer David Satriano contributed to this report
