The Hurricanes will try to break through in game three.
The Carolina Hurricanes return to the friendly confines of the PNC Arena to do battle with the New York Rangers on Thursday night in game three of round two in this playoff series.
Game time is 7 P.M. It will be televised by TBS.
The Canes find themselves down 2-0 against the Presidents’ Trophy winners.
While the team seems pretty happy with their five on five play, their special teams has been abysmal.
Right now they are 0-10 with the man advantage and they are allowing almost 50% on the penalty kill, (4-9).
The Canes did not practice on the ice on Wednesday but they have plenty of film to look at to see how they can improve play.
One of the complaints about the powerplay has been that the number of shots needs to pick up but it’s the quality of shot attempts which is more of the problem.
Carolina had 57 shots on goal Tuesday night and missed the net on another 30 shots. They also had 29 shots blocked. It will be hard to top the total of 116 shots taken, but they should be able to generate better scoring chances. We will see.
On Tuesday, Rod Brind’Amour surprised folk when he replaced Evgeny Kuznetsov with newcomer Max Comtois. The coach would not commit to either player when asked about this game.
It was the same way when asked about goalies, Brind’Amour was coy. “We’ll make a decision tomorrow. Freddie has been good.”
It is rare that a team rebounds after falling behind 3-0 in an NHL playoff series. The Canes need this one.
Here is the team’s preview-
https://www.nhl.com/hurricanes/news/playoff-notebook-back-on-home-ice