‘New energy, new day.’ Carolina Hurricanes still believe Rangers can be beaten

Sebastian Aho said he had a really bad taste in his mouth Thursday night leaving PNC Arena.

He got home and tried to eat. He tried to get some sleep. He was restless.

“You mull the game over in your mind,” the Carolina Hurricanes center said Friday.

There were a lot of things to mull over after the 3-2 overtime loss to the New York Rangers, about falling behind 3-0 in the best-of-seven Stanley Cup playoff series, about a third straight one-goal defeat.

Aho’s line again was productive, as wingers Jake Guentzel and Andrei Svechnikov scored in the game. Goalie Pyotr Kochetkov, in his first start in the 2024 playoffs, was solid enough. There were good parts to the Canes’ game.

But the Canes, for the third consecutive game, were 0-5 on the power play. Rangers goalie Igor Shesterkin again was too good -- “He’s been the difference, there’s no way around it,” Canes coach Rod Brind’Amour said Friday.

Artemi Panarin’s overtime goal won it, leaving Aho and the Canes in the kind of deep hole only four teams in NHL history have escaped in the playoffs.

But Aho came to PNC Arena on Friday ready for the team practice, ready to work, ready to tweak some things and prepare for Game 4 on Saturday.

“New energy, new day,” Aho said.

“There was a lot of life out there. What’s happened has happened. It’s not ideal being down three. At the same time, we’re still alive.”

The way the Canes view it, they have lost three close games, but the margin of victory and defeat has been thin each game, with Shesterkin and Rangers’ special-teams play decisive.

The question raised Thursday: if the Canes can lose three straight close games, why can’t they win three close games and force a Game 7?

“We’ve got a tough road ahead of us,” defenseman Tony DeAngelo said. “But we’ve got the guys in here, the belief in here, that was built for it. We know we’ve got the talent.

“We’ve got to bear down. We’re right there. The games are close. They’ve earned their wins and now we’ve got to find a way to earn ours.”

That’s what the Los Angeles Kings did to the San Jose Sharks in 2014 after falling behind 3-0 in their series. That’s what the Philadelphia Flyers did to the Boston Bruins in 2010.

Former Canes captain Justin Williams was on that Kings team, which then won the Stanley Cup. The Flyers were coached by Peter Laviolette, now the Rangers coach and the man who coached the Hurricanes -- with Brind’Amour and Williams -- to the 2006 Cup championship.

The Toronto Maple Leafs did it to the Detroit Red Wings in the 1942 Stanley Cup final, and the New York Islanders recovered to beat the Pittsburgh Penguins in 1975.

That’s it. That’s the list.

The Canes, in Friday’s practice, had goalie Frederik Andersen working the “starter’s crease” although Brind’Amour later said a decision on the Game 4 starter had not been made. Andersen started the first seven games of the playoffs.

One power-play unit of Guentzel, Aho, Jarvis, Teuvo Teravainen and Brady Skjei as the quarterback. The second unit: Svechnikov, Stefan Noesen, Martin Necas, Evgeny Kuznetsov and Brent Burns.

The tweaks from Game 3 were flipping Teravainen and Svechnikov on the units and Skjei replacing DeAngelo.

“We’ve got to get a little more dialed in on it, on the execution part, for sure,” Brind’Amour said. “You’ve got to give (the Rangers) credit. They’re doing their system really well, and knowing when to pressure and when not. We just haven’t handled that the way we normally do.”

The Canes were second in the NHL on the power play during the regular season and were 5-of-15 on the power play in their first-round playoff series over the Islanders.

“We’ve just got to believe it’s going to happen,” Aho said. “When it does, I like our chances.”

Svechnikov’s goal late in Game 3 was with a man advantage after Kochetkov was pulled for a sixth attacker. The Canes played with understandable urgency and tied the score to force overtime, but have been missing the same kind of urgency 5 on 4.

“When you’re that close … it’s just sticking with and trusting it will be our time, and we’re going to get those bounces and we’re going to capitalize on the power play,” winger Seth Jarvis said Friday. “You want to put all your focus on winning, on staying alive.”