Hurricanes fight their way back home, where they can really apply pressure to Rangers

Maybe the New York Rangers knew they were coming back for Game 6.

After the Carolina Hurricanes’ win Saturday in Game 4, the Rangers left all of their motivational posters hanging on the walls of the visiting dressing room at PNC Arena — slogans, pictures of Manhattan, that stuff. NHL teams are usually pretty good about cleaning up after themselves, so the presence of the traveling branding a day later was a little jarring, especially since the Rangers were going home with a chance to close out the series in Game 5.

So that’s one load-in corner cut for the Rangers as they come back for what Hurricanes forward Evgeny Kuznetsov promised “will be hell.”

“They don’t want to come back here,” Kuznetsov said Sunday.

But the Hurricanes left them no choice after dismissing the surprisingly listless Rangers 4-1 on Monday in New York.

The dynamic changes now. The Game 4 loss after going up 3-0 is as old a hockey tradition as the hat trick, especially on the road. There’s a reason that Game 5 home win to close out a series is known as a “gentleman’s sweep.” Bring it home, take care of business in front of your fans, move on.

When that doesn’t happen, things start to get testy. The Hurricanes saw that last year, when they gave the New York Islanders new life by losing at PNC in Game 5, and needed overtime on Long Island to close them out, far too close for comfort, far too close to facing an anything-can-happen Game 7.

And to be up a goal going into the third period, in the most soul-crushing fashion possible — the phrase “a short-handed goal by Jacob Trouba in an elimination game” exists only in some alternate-universe hockey MadLib — and to then let it all slip away?

All of the doubt the Rangers harbored after their shocking exit at the hands of the New Jersey Devils last spring will come seeping back to the surface, just as the string of one-goal playoff losses seemed to haunt the Hurricanes earlier in the series.

There have been, and will continue to be, fewer power plays as this series moves along, potentially dulling the Rangers’ edge in that department. And while Igor Shesterkin won the goaltending battle in the first four games, it was far from decisive. Seeing his feathers ruffled in Game 5 might be the tonic the Hurricanes’ offense needs.

After all, Jordan Staal’s bravura performance, including the goal he has so long deserved, was not merely reminiscent of the way Rod Brind’Amour dragged the Hurricanes to victory in Game 3 in Montreal in 2006 after losing the first two games at home, scoring a late tying goal against the Canadiens before screening Eric Staal’s game-winner.

Monday night was also reminiscent of the way the Hurricanes got to Jose Theodore in Game 4 in Montreal four years earlier, in a game that also ended with four unanswered goals. Theodore was never the same after the Miracle at Molson. And not just in that series — the Hurricanes tagged him for 10 goals in the next game and a half — but in his career. He won the Hart and Vezina trophies in 2002 and not only never played at that level again, but only had more one good season.

Shesterkin has a longer track record, and no one’s expecting him to break, but he bent in Game 5, and given the fine margins in the first four games, even a little wobble could be the opening the Hurricanes need as they try to pull off hockey’s most difficult comeback.

A win in Game 5 opens that door. A win in Game 6 would wedge it wide open. The Hurricanes are coming home, and the Rangers have to come back, and it will be hell for someone.

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