How the Carolina Hurricanes landed on the verge of elimination in Game 3 loss to Rangers

When the Stanley Cup playoffs end for the Carolina Hurricanes, which could be Saturday, they’ll likely think back to a play or two that could have made a difference.

In many ways, it could be like the Canes’ season-ending playoff series a year ago against the Florida Panthers in the Eastern Conference final. There were four straight losses, all in one-goal games, all when the Panthers got the one big shot or big bounce they needed for a sweep.

The Hurricanes have twice gone into overtime games with the New York Rangers, losing 3-2 Thursday in Game 3 of their NHL Eastern Conference semifinal series. Those are one-shot games, the players like to say, and the Hurricanes lost them both, the reason they’re down 3-0 in the best-of-seven series and facing very long odds on getting out of this year’s playoff predicament.

A year ago, Canes center Sebastian Aho stood in the visitors locker room after a loss in Game 3 to Florida and almost defiantly said his team could come back, could win four in a row and win the series.

“Hundred percent,” he said.

The Canes didn’t do it, couldn’t do it. In that series, Panthers goalie Sergei Bobrovsky stymied them. Against the Rangers, it has been Igor Shesterkin.

“It’s tough,” Aho said Thursday. “Our backs are against the wall. Yeah, it’s tough. The good thing is we’re still alive.

“It is what it is. It’s hockey, you know. You just have to find a way to win.”

The Canes now have one more game to solve Shesterkin, who had 45 saves in Game 3 — allowing Carolina’s first goal on a redirection by Jake Guentzel in the opening period and the second in the final moments of regulation when the Canes went to a sixth attacker and Andrei Svechnikov scored.

“We’ve been playing in their zone a lot but ‘Shesty’ has been good for them,” Svechnikov said. “I don’t know what we gotta do but we’ve got to do something special here.”

Scoring power-play goals, at this point, would be a special thing for the Hurricanes. That and not allowing the Rangers any more scoring chances when the Canes have the 5-on-4 advantage.

New York’s Chris Kreider scored shorthanded in the second period. A few moments later, he nearly did it again. And Vincent Trocheck, the former Canes center who has tormented his old team this series, had a shorthanded chance.

Asked about the power-play failures — Carolina is 0-15 in the series — Aho said, “Yeah, it’s, it’s, uh, I don’t know what it is exactly.” The Rangers have a good penalty-killing team, and Shesterkin is back there, but 0-for-15?

The frustration of the special-team woes showed in Rod Brind’Amour’s postgame comments when he said, “We’re focusing on how bad we’re playing but we’re really playing pretty damn good. I look at that. There’s two games going on here. We’re losing one badly but we’re doing pretty damn good on the other one.”

Brind’Amour decided on a goaltender change for Game 3, Pyotr Kochetkov got his first start of the playoffs and did his job. But defenseman Dmitry Orlov turned the puck over in the Carolina zone early in overtime, allowing the Rangers to make a quick strike on an Artemi Panarin between-the-legs tip and blink-of-an-eye winner.

The Canes were stunned. Kochetkov, so poised through the game, was stunned. The sellout crowd, so thunderous when Svechnikov scored late, sat stunned.

“That was kind of a second life we got there,” Aho said of the Svechnikov goal.

The locker room was filled with positive vibes in the intermission break before the overtime, Svechnikov said.

“We had lots of energy after that goal,” Svechnikov said. “But that’s what happens sometimes.”

What happens next is that the Canes either win Game 4 or that’s it. It’s a team that added Guentzel and center Evgeny Kuznetsov at the trade deadline, that believed it had all the pieces in place to make a run at the Cup.

Now, here they are, facing an elimination game.

“It hurts,” Brind’Amour said. “You’ve got to be realistic. They’re as down as they’re ever going to be.

“I mean, you’ve got to feel that. That’s the ‘keep it real’ part of it But you’ve got to pick yourself up and come back tomorrow.”

At this point, that’s all they can do.