The New York Rangers had the table set beautifully for them heading into Game 5 – the chance to close out their series against the Carolina Hurricanes on Monday night in front of their home crowd.
Despite their 3-1 lead heading into the game and the home ice advantage, the Rangers failed to get the job done, losing 4-1 to Carolina on Monday night to trim their series lead to 3-2 with Game 6 scheduled to take place back in Raleigh, North Carolina.
The game was particularly deflating as the Rangers held a 1-0 lead heading into the 3rd period.
“I don’t think we thought this was going to be a cakewalk,” Rangers captain Jacob Trouba said, according to ESPN’s Greg Wyshynski. “We’ve lost two games [in a row]. We’re facing a little adversity. We’ll see what we’re made of going down to Carolina for Game 6.”
The Hurricanes stormed back during the 3rd period, scoring 3 goals in a span of 6:23.
“It kind of snowballed quick on us. This was a bad period,” Trouba said. “It’s different than a regular season, where you feel bad all night and tomorrow you wake up and you’re upset. You got to turn the page quick.”
“I don’t know if I’m going to say something snowballed tonight,” Rangers center Vincent Trocheck, said. “They scored a couple goals in the third. It’s a seven-game series against a team that was three points behind us in the regular season. We knew it wasn’t going to be easy.”
Despite the collapse in the 3rd period, Rangers coach Peter Laviolette doesn’t chalk up the loss to just the 3rd period alone.
“It was more than the third period. We weren’t sharp. We gave up way too many chances in the first period and then it died off after that,” the coach said.
Carolina now heads back home with a restored confidence.
“Yeah, obviously wins help” Hurricanes captain Jordan Staal said. “But we really believe we had some good games [to start the series], but we had some mistakes, especially with the special teams, and that’s gotten a lot better. I think our 5-on-5 game has been really good and it’s coming together more and more.
“Wins are nice. We’ve got to just keep fighting.”
“Game 5s are tough, especially when you’re at home. You don’t want to go back on the road and you want to close it out,” he added. “But we gave it all we got, we found a way to get a win and we’re going to have to do it all over again.
“Obviously we want to close out series, but we put ourselves in a position that we get a couple cracks at it,” Staal said. “We played good games in Carolina. We know we can play in that building, and we’ll go down there and bring a better game.”
