RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — It’s one win in a series otherwise going resoundingly against them. The Carolina Hurricanes still face a long and improbable climb ahead against the reigning Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers.
For now the reward from Monday’s sweep-averting road win is simply another chance to play at home in Wednesday night’s Game 5 of the Eastern Conference final.
“I don’t really think (mentality) changes if you’re up three or down three,” coach Rod Brind’Amour said Tuesday. “Like, what, are you going to try harder? Everybody’s trying their hardest and everybody wants to win that next game.”
Carolina’s 3-0 win Monday night staved off elimination while ending a nasty conference-final losing streak (15 games dating to 2009). But playing on means keeping fleeting hope alive, even against a tested and deep champion.
Florida swept Carolina in the 2023 Eastern final with four one-goal wins that gave the Hurricanes reason to feel they were in it the whole way. This had been anything but, starting with the 5-2 loss in Game 1 followed by a 5-0 romp that drew frustrated chants from a rowdy-turned-despondent home crowd.
In Saturday’s Game 3, Florida turned a 1-1 game entering the third into a 6-2 win that moved them within a win of the Cup final.
Getting to closeout opportunities is not new for the Panthers, who won nine of their first 10 series under Paul Maurice.
Also not new: letting the first chance (or three, in one case) at that closeout win slip away. Monday’s loss dropped Florida’s record in potential closeout games since the start of the 2023 playoffs to just 9-8.
It begged this question of Maurice: Do the Panthers learn from those missed chances?
“I don’t believe in it. I don’t believe in that idea at all,” Maurice said. “If it was just a learned thing, you’d be 16-0 every year. It’s just not real. We had won seven of eight playoff games going into (Monday) night. … They were better at their game than we were at our game. We’ve managed to not have that happen very often.”
That said, he is a big believer in learning. The tape Tuesday showed there was much to learn coming out of Game 4, and players knew lessons were coming.
That’s how the day went, and then it was off to the plane. Simple.
“The first four or five minutes I would call them names. I’m mindful of the hotline now so the names aren’t nearly as good as they used to be,” Maurice said. “Then I show them the video that attaches them to the names that I’ve called them, and then we’re going to do a bunch of video on something technical about where we’ve got to be better, where we can be better, so we can see it.”
(Lengthy) injury report
Florida’s Sam Reinhart, Niko Mikkola and A.J. Greer all missed Game 4 with injuries; all skated Tuesday and are expected to skate again Wednesday morning before determinations are made for Game 5.
Reinhart left Thursday’s Game 2 in the first period after a low hit by Carolina’s Sebastian Aho. Greer appeared to injure himself delivering a hit on Jordan Staal in Game 3, while Mikkola was shaken up after crashing hard into the boards — his right shoulder hitting first — that same night.
Carolina, meanwhile, started the series with defenseman Jalen Chatfield sidelined, while Sean Walker has missed the past two games since taking a jarring open-ice hit from Greer in Game 2. That’s left the Hurricanes without two of their top six blue-liners.
Young legs
There’s been at least one promising development for Carolina in the play of its youngsters, forward Logan Stankoven and defenseman Alexander Nikishin.
The 22-year-old Stankoven, the primary return in the Hurricanes’ deadline-deal pivot out of the Mikko Rantanen business, has scored in two straight games and is tied for second on the team with five playoff goals.
His Game 4 winner came off a nifty feed from the 23-year-old Nikishin, marking the first NHL point for a top blue-line prospect pressed into three playoff games for his first NHL action due to Carolina’s blue-line injuries.
Road vs. home success
Florida has seven road playoff wins, the past four coming by a combined score of 22-4 going back to matching 6-1 wins in Games 5 and 7 of the second-round series against Toronto.
Carolina had 31 home regular-season wins to tie the Los Angeles Kings for most in the league, then went 5-0 in two playoff rounds.
Staying alive
Carolina is 6-6 under Brind’Amour when facing elimination. That includes two wins last year after falling behind 3-0 against the New York Rangers in a six-game second-round series.