Kochetkov heroics not enough for Hurricanes in Game 3 loss to Rangers

RALEIGH, N.C. -- Pyotr Kochetkov rested on one knee for what seemed to be an eternity, the puck nestled in the cage behind him.

The Carolina Hurricanes goalie had the entire New York Rangers team to his right, congregating into a mosh pit of unbridled joy. His teammates were seemingly a million miles away, slumped on the bench or leaning on their sticks in front of it, slack-jawed and stunned.

Slowly, Kochetkov heaved himself up onto his skates and made his way toward the exit. 

The scoreboard at PNC Arena loomed overhead, broadcasting the reason for the goalie’s weariness, attesting to the 3-2 victory by the visitors that came when Artemi Panarin made a circus-like deflection of a pass from Vincent Trocheck that beat the Russian goalie to the blocker at 1:43 of overtime in Game 3 of the Eastern Conference Second Round on Thursday.

“He gave us every chance to win a hockey game,” Carolina forward Sebastian Aho said. “You can’t ask for more out of a goalie. Made good saves and he looked really good out there. It probably isn’t the easiest spot for him to come in, but he played a great game.”

In the blink of an eye, the Hurricanes found themselves down 3-0 in the best-of-7 series, the victim of a third straight one-goal loss to the Rangers, a second straight in overtime. Now, they are on the precipice of seeing their season end in a four-game sweep for the second season in a row.

The Hurricanes have lost the first three games in a best-of-7 series six times in their history. They have never come back. There have been 209 teams that have tried to make the journey back, to reverse-sweep a best-of-7 series. Four have succeeded.

Long odds, indeed.

“I don’t know what we need to do, but we have to do something special here,” Carolina forward Andrei Svechnikov said.

The journey starts with Game 4 here Saturday (7 p.m. ET; MAX, TruTV, TNT, SN, TVAS, CBC).

Kochetkov hadn’t played since April 14, a regular-season win against the Chicago Blackhawks in which he made 14 saves.

But there he was Thursday, asked to play savior when coach Rod Brind’Amour decided starting goalie Frederik Andersen needed a rest after playing the first seven games of the postseason and allowing four goals in each of the past two games to the Rangers.

Kochetkov delivered a great performance, making 22 saves. His poke check on a breakaway by Chris Kreider in the last minute -- seconds after Svechnikov had tied it with the goalie pulled at 18:24 of the third period -- was the one needed to force overtime.

Suddenly, the Hurricanes had life, had a way back into this series.

They had hope heading into the dressing room after regulation. One bounce and they would be on their way, putting doubt into the Rangers for the first time in this series.

Then hope was extinguished.

Panarin scored, dooming the Hurricanes to more heartbreak.

“It was a second life for us, and we had lots of energy after that goal,” said Svechnikov. “But three minutes and that’s what happens sometimes."

Their past eight playoff losses have been by one goal, dating to a sweep by the Florida Panthers in the 2023 Eastern Conference Final. Five have come in overtime.

This was probably the most cruel of the three losses at the hands of the Rangers because the Hurricanes played their best game.

They scored first in a game in this series for the first time, on a pretty deflection goal by Jake Guentzel at 10:15 of the first period. They dominated at 5-on-5 and outshot the Rangers 47-25 overall. They went 4-for-4 on the penalty kill, holding the Rangers without a power-play goal after allowing two in each of the first two games.

Their power play, however, remains an albatross.

It failed five more times Thursday, refusing to deliver the spark the Hurricanes needed. More tellingly, it allowed a short-handed goal by Kreider at 8:30 of the second period that tied the game 1-1.

Carolina is 0-for-15 on the power play in this series after scoring five power-play goals in five games against the New York Islanders in the first round and being second in the NHL during the regular season (90.7 percent).

They are gutted by their failure with the man-advantage, gutted by the losses.

The weariness and the pain were everywhere in the home dressing room.

“It hurts but you have to be realistic,” Brind’Amour said. “They are probably as down as they are ever going to be. You have to feel that. That’s the keeping-it-real part of it. But then you have to pick yourself up. We’ll come back tomorrow because we’re still playing. I do think it’s important to actually feel it.”

The Hurricanes were feeling it; they were lost in sadness, frustration, regret, rage.

In one corner, Kotchetkov sat alone, his equipment scattered on the floor, his head bowed. At the other end, captain Jordan Staal spoke softly, reflecting the sense of mourning he was experiencing. Other players filed slowly past, looking down, not making eye contact, consumed by their own thoughts.

In the end, Staal put on a brave face and summoned some positivity, relying on the one-day-at a time ethos that every professional hockey player adopts at some point in his journey.

“We have tomorrow and we’re excited about tomorrow,” he said. “We’re excited about getting better and finding ways to beat this team. It’s going to be a new day tomorrow. It’s going to hurt tonight, we won’t get much sleep, but we’ll have a new day tomorrow and find a way to win one game. That’s been our motto here for a long, long time.

“You don’t see a whole lot of comebacks from three but why not? … We’ll start with one.”