New York. It was business as usual when the Carolina Hurricanes played a home game last night.
They won – for the seventh out of seven possible playoffs this year.
The only problem is that they simultaneously lost five of their five away games and now have to beat the New York Rangers at Madison Square Garden this weekend to determine the series.
– We can only hope we’ve learned our lesson, Jesper Fast tells Sportbladet after the 3-1 victory.
Rarely has he had a team more schizophrenic than the Carolina Hurricanes he made in the Stanley Cup playoffs.
They’re unbeatable at home in a Rally – but they can’t win far at all.
Fifth round against New York Rangers It was set last night at the PNC Arena, and it’s pretty obvious: They put in an almost perfect effort, shutting out guests from the big city so they could hardly breathe, and netted their seventh straight home win.
Thus, they have a 3-2 advantage and can select the entire series in the next match.
However, that will be decided in Manhattan, the night before Sunday, and out of town in Raleigh, Kanis has lost five of his five matches.
“It was a well done game by us tonight and we can hope we’ve learned our lesson and won our first away game now,” salutes Småland striker Jesper Fast in a text message.
Other than that, it will be game seven on Monday – and Rangers feel quite confident they can pose such a scenario.
I’m disappointed with the effort tonight, we looked tired. But we’ll go back and make a real character match in the Garden. Hopefully we win so we can get back here and roll the dice for a straightforward crucial deal, says coach Gerard Gallant.
The only glimmer of light last night was that Mika Zebani Nejad scored his sixth qualifying goal of the year – with a brilliant volley in Powerplay at the end of the first half.