3 Keys: Hurricanes at Rangers, Game 6 of Eastern Second Round

(1M) Hurricanes at (2M) Rangers
8 p.m. ET; ESPN, SN, TVAS
Hurricanes lead best-of-7 series 3-2

The Carolina Hurricanes will try to eliminate the New York Rangers and advance to the Eastern Conference Final when they play Game 6 of the second round at Madison Square Garden on Saturday.
To do that in Game 6, the Hurricanes will have to win on the road, something they have yet to do in the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Carolina is 0-5 away from home.
"We're going to give it our best," Hurricanes coach Rod Brind'Amour said Friday. "We're going to try to win. Like we do every night. So nothing really changes. We don't want to come back (home) and have another game, but we're going to do everything we can to win tomorrow night."
If the Hurricanes win, they would advance to face the Tampa Bay Lightning in the conference final, their first trip to that round since 2019, when they lost to the Boston Bruins in four games.
[Complete Hurricanes vs. Rangers series coverage]
But the Rangers have won the two games at MSG in the series by a combined 7-2 score and are confident they can take the series back to PNC Arena for a Game 7 on Monday.
"Home-ice advantage is big," Rangers forward Alexis Lafreniere said Friday. "We're a really good team in our building. They're a real good team in their building. You've got to win some road games if you want to win and we weren't able to last night and it was a tough loss (3-1 in Game 5). We wanted to win that one for sure, but we have to defend home ice tomorrow and I think we're able to."
The Hurricanes are 9-0 all-time when leading 3-2 in a best-of-7 series, including 8-0 when starting at home.
Here are 3 keys to Game 6:

1. Rest up, Rangers

After the Rangers put together a less-than-stellar showing in Game 5, looking slow at times and not playing the game that has gotten them to this point, coach Gerard Gallant said his team looked tired.
"I thought tonight in this series they took advantage of a team that wasn't ready to compete as hard as we should have," Gallant said after Game 5 on Thursday. "It's not that the guys didn't want to compete, it's we looked tired for whatever reason."
They shouldn't. They're playing in a winnable series with a chance to advance to the conference final. The Hurricanes, who, like the Rangers, needed seven games to win their first-round series, have gotten exactly the same amount of rest - and they played hard, with pressure, limiting shots and chances and clogging up the neutral zone in Game 5.
The Rangers - who did not practice Friday - will be playing their 13th game in 26 days.

2. More from the meat of the lineup

Andrei Svechnikov and Vincent Trocheck, two of the Hurricanes top five scorers in the regular season, each got his first point of the series in Game 5.
In the regular season, Svechnikov was the team's second-leading scorer, with 69 points (30 goals, 39 assists). Trocheck was tied for fourth, with 51 points (21 goals, 30 assists).
Teuvo Teravainen has 11 points (four goals, seven assists) in 12 games in the playoffs. But the Hurricanes need more from the rest of their big-time scorers to move on.
"We hope," Brind'Amour said, of whether Svechnikov's goal in Game 5 would jumpstart his game. "Obviously we need him to score if we're going to win games, at this time of year especially. That's a huge goal at the right time. I don't know that he was playing lights-out up to that point. But that kind of player has that ability to, out of nowhere, make something happen and that's what happened there."

3. Being special on special teams

Part of the Hurricanes trouble on the road in the playoffs has been their play on special teams. In five games -- all losses -- the Hurricanes have been outscored 8-1, including 2-0 by the Rangers in Games 3 and 4 at Madison Square Garden.
Carolina's special teams were much improved - as has tended to be the case at home - in Game 5 in Raleigh, with the Hurricanes scoring on the penalty kill and on the power play. But that needs to transfer to their play on the road, if the team hopes to avoid a Game 7.
"I think discipline's going to be big, again," forward Seth Jarvis said.
Not going on the penalty kill would help, but so would converting on the chances that they get on the power play, as they finally did in Game 6. Teravainen's power-play goal was the Hurricanes' first of the series on the man advantage after the team had gone 0-for-9 in the first four games.

Hurricanes projected lineup

Teuvo Teravainen -- Sebastian Aho -- Seth Jarvis
Andrei Svechnikov -- Vincent Trocheck -- Martin Necas
Nino Niederreiter -- Jordan Staal -- Jesper Fast
Jordan Martinook -- Jesperi Kotkaniemi -- Max Domi
Jaccob Slavin -- Tony DeAngelo
Brady Skjei -- Brett Pesce
Brendan Smith -- Ian Cole
Antti Raanta
Pyotr Kochetkov
Scratched: Ethan Bear, Derek Stepan, Steven Lorentz
Injured:Frederik Andersen (lower body)

Rangers projected lineup

Chris Kreider -- Mika Zibanejad -- Frank Vatrano
Artemi Panarin -- Ryan Strome -- Andrew Copp
Alexis Lafreniere -- Filip Chytil -- Tyler Motte
Kaapo Kakko -- Kevin Rooney -- Ryan Reaves
Ryan Lindgren -- Adam Fox
K'Andre Miller -- Jacob Trouba
Justin Braun -- Braden Schneider
Igor Shesterkin
Alexandar Georgiev
Scratched:Patrik Nemeth, Libor Hajek, Greg McKegg, Julien Gauthier, Jonny Brodzinski, Dryden Hunt
Injured: Barclay Goodrow (lower body), Sammy Blais (knee)

Status report

The Rangers did not practice Friday and did not hold a morning skate Saturday. … The Hurricanes will use the same lineup from Game 5.