New York City continued to be a disappointing trip for the Hurricanes as the Carolina Hurricanes dropped both games in the Garden in Manhatten. With the Canes still unable to find success away from home, the team returns to PNC Arena in the hopes of recapturing the series lead in the City of Oaks before they go back to New York for game six. Tonight, it’s a chance for redemption for the Hurricanes.
Carolina has had a clear issue in this series. Scoring. With the Hurricanes only tallying 6 goals in the four games so far in this series, they need to break down the floodgates and open up the restraints put upon their offense by the New York Rangers. It’s not easy to score on the Vezina winner and no one is arguing that, but the Canes do need to figure out a way to solve the Rangers netminder.
At the end of game four in New York, we saw the teams start to get chippy and aggressive at the conclusion of the games. If the Rangers are going to try and intimidate the Hurricanes, Carolina needs to come out playing physical hockey and ignoring the antics. Let the Rangers do what they want and run up the score. If the Canes allow the Blueshirts to get under their skin, we’re going to see another poor performance.
For the love of all that is good in this world, the Carolina Hurricanes need to get some help for Antti Raanta. He had one shot that kind of squeaked through him in game four, but there wasn’t a lot outside of that to complain about from the Canes’ feel-good story of this postseason. He cannot win games on his own. If the team leaves him out to dry again, they’re not going to win this game or this series.