Why the Hurricanes’ Game 6 loss to the Rangers was a crushing end for a ‘special group’
It was hard for Sebastian Aho to find the right words, hard to say the words.
For Aho and the Carolina Hurricanes, a 5-3 loss to the New York Rangers, and the way it unfolded Thursday, and the consequences it had, left the center emotional.
On Monday, the Canes’ season had come down to 20 minutes in the third period of Game 5 of their playoff series. The Hurricanes, trailing by a goal at Madison Square Garden, responded by scoring four times in the third for a 4-1 win that led to a Game 6 on Thursday at rollicking PNC Arena.
With 20 minutes left in Game 6, the Canes led 3-1. Had Jordan Martinook or Jake Guentzel been an inch or two finer on their shots, had they gotten a good bounce, had their shots found the net instead of ringing off metal, it might have been another win for Carolina and a Game 7 coming up.
Or Aho. He skated in on goalie Igor Shesterkin in the third and missed the net with a backhander.
But to have it all crumble in the third was crushing, totally unexpected, The Rangers’ Chris Kreider, always a net presence, always dangerous with tips and redirections, had a natural hat trick and New York added an empty-net goal to finish it off and put an end to the Eastern Conference semifinal series that was brutal for Carolina.
Kreider’s first goal, poking the puck past goalie Frederik Andersen at the post to make it 3-2, appeared to sap confidence away from the Canes while further energizing the Rangers.
“It definitely hurt, obviously,” Andersen said. “You don’t want to give them life.”
The Rangers took it from there. Kreider pushed the Rangers ahead 4-3 by winning a battle for position with defenseman Jalen Chatfield in front after Ryan Lindgren circled the net with the puck.
As Canes coach Rod Brind’Amour said, “Their top guys stepped up when they needed to.”
And so Aho, one of the Canes’ top guys, sat in the locker room and tried to make sense of it.
“It’s a special group,” Aho said. “Hopefully we will stay (together) as much as possible. That’s the (sad) part of it. We had a special group and had everything that we need to get over the hump.
“I thought we added the pieces that were missing. It sucks.”
The Canes added defenseman Dmitry Orlov in offseason free agency. They added Guentzel and center Evgeny Kuznetsov at the trade deadline, two veteran forwards who had won Stanley Cup rings, as did Orlov.
“Obviously not good enough,” Aho said. “We had one goal in mind, to go all the way and be the best team, and we didn’t get there.”
Despite the sadness of the final loss, it will be remembered the Canes forced a Game 6 with two straight wins. It was a resilient group all season and it was that in the playoffs.
“We battled hard,” Canes captain Jordan Staal said. “We played some great hockey, I think, the whole series and won a couple of big games. We were 20 minutes from rolling into Game 7 and anything can happen in Game 7. So frustrating, upsetting.”
Brind’Amour has put together a system and a culture that is all about winning and winning the right way. His teams are aggressive and pressure you. The Canes won back-to-back Metropolitan Division titles before being beaten out by three points by the Rangers this season, by a team that won the league’s Presidents’ Trophy.
After missing the playoffs for nine straight seasons, exhausting the patience of the Canes faithful, Carolina has qualified in all six of Brind’Amour’s seasons as head coach. That’s a lot of success. And yet …
The finality now is that the season is over, again short of the team’s ultimate goal, and changes are coming.
“That’s tough,” Brind’Amour said. “That’s a special group in there and this is a tough way to end a really good year. These guys played their butts all year but this is what you’re going to remember, right? That’s the hard part.
“But it’s a business. I’d love to roll this back with those guys but who knows how it’s all going to shake out.”
This story was originally published May 17, 2024, 6:00 AM.
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