If Canes have the ‘high-end stuff’ to beat good teams in playoffs, it’s time to prove it

With everything else going on, when the New York Rangers scored in overtime on a bang-bang play out of the corner, Peter Laviolette just knew the game was over. It wasn’t until he went back and watched the video that he saw the skill in Artemi Panarin’s tip, between his legs with his back to the net, over Pyotr Kochetkov’s right arm.

“It really was just a puck to the net,” Laviolette said. “But that’s when the high-end stuff comes in.”

The play Panarin made to push the Carolina Hurricanes to the brink of elimination with 3-2 win in Game 3 on Thursday was precisely the kind of high-end play the Rangers have made to win all seven of their playoff games this spring, including three straight one-goal wins over the Hurricanes.

It’s also precisely the kind of high-end play the Hurricanes have been unable to make when needed, not just in this series, but when they were eliminated by the Florida Panthers last year with four one-goal losses, and when the Rangers upset the Hurricanes in seven games in 2022.

So as the Hurricanes face a sweep for the second straight season Saturday, their last eight playoff losses all by one goal, with five straight losses in overtime, the first step toward a historic comeback is this: Everything else aside, are the Hurricanes talented enough to beat a good opponent in the playoffs, when regular-season strengths are minimized and flaws are magnified?

Because when you lose this many games by these very fine margins, over and over and over again, it stops being a coincidence, a quirk of fate, bad luck. It is the reason. It is the failing. It is the flaw.

The misfiring power play, now 0-for-15 and outscored 1-0 in the series, may be the best and most pertinent example. Facing an elite goalie and a finely drilled, well-structured penalty-kill, where’s the skilled play to break down that defense, to find whatever opening Igor Shesterkin leaves?

That alone would do it. But it isn’t just that.

The Rangers’ best players have been better than the Hurricanes’ best players. Pararin, Chris Kreider, Vincent Trocheck and Mika Zibanejad have combined for eight goals and 21 points. Sebastian Aho, Jake Guentzel, Seth Jarvis, and Andrei Svechnikov have five goals and 14 points. And when they’re the only forwards scoring for the Hurricanes, it really isn’t enough.

That alone might also do it. But it isn’t just either of those.

The Rangers, like the Panthers before them, have turned the Hurricanes’ aggression and mentality against them. Take all the shots you want. We’ll make the actual plays to win. You want to pepper our Vezina Trophy-caliber goalie with shots from the perimeter? Fine. It’ll only make him stronger. Meanwhile, we’ll pick our spots to beat your guy. We won’t need many.

The Hurricanes sure seem to run into hot goalies at the wrong time, huh? Shesterkin, Sergei Bobrovsky, Shesterkin, Andrei Vasilevskiy. They sure seem to rise to the occasion. Funny, that.

A franchise that values skill above all else — that isn’t going to goon it up or park the bus or any of the other ways teams find ways to throw off an opponent in the playoffs — may not have enough of it.

Is Aho a true star or just a really good player? There isn’t a team in the NHL that wouldn’t want him, but he hasn’t done what great players are doing elsewhere to win playoff games. Just look across the ice, and that’s not exactly Connor McDavid or Nathan MacKinnon over there.

Is Svechnikov the elite 50-goal scorer he looks like he can be or the all-around power forward he has been? He’s had a great postseason, and there’s nothing wrong with the latter, but the Hurricanes needed and expected more from the second overall pick.

Jarvis is probably playing hurt, based on his reaction to the Adam Fox hit in Game 2, and he isn’t exactly playing on a scoring line, but he should be able to finish some of the chances that line creates. And Guentzel is at least scoring goals, finally, but it hasn’t been enough from any of them. Especially on the power play.

Meanwhile Brent Burns is spiraling and Martin Necas continues to spin his wheels and Teuvo Teravainen is in witness protection and the low-risk, high-reward acquisition of Evgeny Kuznetsov has been a no-reward move.

So far.

Every one of these players, every single one, still has a chance to go make the kind of plays to win games that the Rangers have made, and the Panthers made before them, and the Rangers made before them. (And the Lightning before them, but there certainly weren’t open questions about the talent differential going into that series.)

They can prove they’re what the Hurricanes think they are, prove they are what they’re paid to be, by making the kind of plays that win playoff games. The kind of plays that keep being made against them, over and over.

And then doing it again. And again. And again.

You can’t lose this many the same way, against different opponents, under different circumstances, without acknowledging that something very important is missing.

Maybe the Hurricanes have the “high-end stuff” to reverse this series, or at the very least put the Rangers to the question. But maybe, and this appears to be the case through three games of this series and three postseasons as a contender, they don’t.

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