1. There for the Taking
Though the Hurricanes gave up five goals and took the loss, they did a lot of things right. The effort was there. The shots were there. The scoring chances were there.
The result wasn't, though.
"We worked hard, but we gave them too many easy goals," Sebastian Aho said. "The game was right there. We played it well enough and had a lot of scoring chances. The system works, obviously. When we have a chance, we have to be a little bit sharper."
"Lundqvist always plays pretty solid against us. I feel like we had really good chances tonight. I think, for the most part, we played a pretty good game," Jaccob Slavin said. "But, there were little turnovers we had, little lapses we had that ended up costing us the game."
That seems to be a common refrain against the Rangers as of late.
"The last couple of years, to be honest with you," head coach Rod Brind'Amour said. "We've seen a lot of the same. It is what it is."
2. Challenging The King
Henrik Lundqvist's numbers versus the Hurricanes are ridiculous, whether you look at his home stats or his last 10 games or his numbers since nearly the beginning of the decade.
Any way you slice it, he's been good against the Canes.
The story is no different this season. Coming into tonight, he had stopped 86 of the 90 shots he saw in two wins, and in his third straight victory over the Canes this season, he made 39 saves on 42 shots.
"They've got a good goalie. We know that," Brind'Amour said. "He's played well against us forever. He was solid again tonight."
Again, the Canes peppered him with over 40 shots, and this time, they slipped three pucks by a him - a fourth, too, that was accurately rescinded on a coach's challenge.
But it still wasn't enough.
"It's been tough," Brind'Amour said. "A lot of our losses, we've played really well. It's just unfortunate."
3. Four Straight for the Rangers
In about 17 minutes of game time - from the 16:31 mark of the first period to the 13:14 mark of the second - the Rangers scored four straight goals to put the Canes in a three-goal hole.
Mika Zibanejad scored the first, a power-play marker off a no-look, backhand feed from Chris Kreider from behind the net. Zibanejad returned the favor 87 seconds into the second period, dishing off to Kreider on a 2-on-1 rush to put the Rangers ahead.
Then, a bounce here. Artemi Panarin located a loose puck and roofed it. Then, a bounce there. Zibanejad honed in on another loose puck and banged it in.
And then, a three-goal deficit for the Canes.
"We gave them a couple too easy ones," Aho said.
The Canes made a game of it, though. In front of his lively clan, Brett Pesce tallied his first goal against the Rangers late in the second period to bring the Canes within two goals.
