Recap: Canes Season Comes To A Close In Game 7 Loss To New York

RALEIGH, NC. -The Carolina Hurricanes season came to a close Monday, falling to the New York Rangers by a score of 6-2 in Round Two of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

Three Things

1) Lost The Special Teams Battle, Again
For a fifth consecutive first period the New York Rangers capitalized on a Carolina penalty, jumping out to a 1-0 lead just 3:40 in.
The Canes were provided with an opportunity to even the contest on a power play of their own 38 seconds later, but could not convert.
Then, 4:20 after the unsuccessful attempt, the Rangers struck on the man advantage again, putting Carolina completely behind the eight ball.
From there the Canes were chasing the game, never able to even the contest and at one point falling behind as far as 4-0.
2) A Complete Defensive Effort For New York
As mentioned above, the Rangers MVP-nominated netminder was solid once again throughout, turning away 37 out of 39 over the course of 60 minutes.
New York also did a strong job defensively in front of Shesterkin, blocking 25 shots as well.

3) Limping To The Finish Line
The Hurricanes defeat also came with two injuries during the contest.
Seth Jarvis left the game midway through the first after being on the wrong end of hit from Jacob Trouba. During the first intermission it was announced that he would not return due to an upper-body injury.
Then, amid the second period, Antti Raanta left the game with an apparent lower-body injury while attempting to work left-to-right to make a save. Pyotr Kochetkov entered in relief for a second straight contest, playing the final 24:04.

They Said It

Rod Brind'Amour's opening remarks, post-game...
"Every year [the season ending] is hard. This year is tougher, maybe, because I felt like we were in a different spot. I don't know if we were better [than last year], but we were right there. It's another year where we don't get that chance [to win a Stanley Cup]."
Brind'Amouron his team's struggle to score in the series, elaborating a bit on what went wrong tonight for his team and giving New York credit for the way that they won...
"There wasn't a lack of offense, it was a lack of scoring. But it wasn't a lack of scoring because you didn't get chances, that wasn't what this was. You have to work hard to get your chances and I think we did that. I don't think we gave up a ton, we did at the end because we were opening up... They've got some talent over there. They played to their identity and give them a ton of credit. They cashed in on the power play and when they broke down, they knew they had a goalie back there to make some saves."
Jordan Staal's thoughts on the series and what didn't go the way of his team tonight...
"In a seven-game series you would think the right team wins. Our five-on-five play was there, I feel like we could play with any team in the league. But we found a way to beat ourselves with a few different plays and a couple different things."
Jaccob Slavintouching on what the biggest difference was between the Canes strong special teams play in the regular season and difficulties in the postseason...
"Everyone's good in the playoffs, right? We have to elevate our game and we have to stay out of the box. We gave teams chances and chances and chances on the power play with their best players playing at their best, something is bound to happen."

Bonus Notes

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