Oh, you thought this was going to be easy?
You thought because the Carolina Hurricanes walked over the Nashville Predators in the regular season, then won both games at home to start this series, they’d glide through the rest of this to rest up before facing the survivor of the Battle of Florida?
Nope. This is not going to be easy. It never is.
A series played on a knife edge -- within a goal for all but 13 minutes of 16 periods -- is officially too close to call. Luke Kunin’s double-overtime winner made sure of that Sunday afternoon, giving the Predators their second straight double-OT win, 4-3, to tie the series as it moves back to Raleigh for Game 5 on Tuesday.
The Hurricanes may have won the division, and they may be analytically superior in this series by a wide margin, but the Predators made the big plays when it mattered. In the playoffs, that’s the trump card.
“We battled hard,” Hurricanes forward Jordan Martinook said. “It can go either way when you get into that situation. Obviously, they got the two here. Overtime, you flip a coin. Whoever gets a chance and buries it.”
Friday was the second-longest game the Hurricanes have ever played; now Sunday is. A goal in any of the overtimes would have sent the Hurricanes home with a chance to clinch. Instead, it’s a best-of-three and the Hurricanes have worn valuable tread off their tires.
If the Hurricanes went to Nashville looking to close things out -- and could have, with two timely goals -- they return looking inward, perhaps wondering how much they have left in the tank. The absence of the indispensable Jaccob Slavin the past three games has been massive, especially as both games dragged into extra extra periods, demanding an extraordinary effort from both Brett Pesce and Brady Skjei.
“He’s one of the best players in the league,” Hurricanes coach Rod Brind’Amour said. “Take him out of anybody’s lineup and you’re going to miss him. Especially when you play basically another game, right? And a bit? It’s going to show up. That’s part of it, though. Injuries are a big, big part of playoff hockey and I think our guys have stepped up great.”
A LOT OF SHOTS, NOT A LOT OF GOALS
The Hurricanes won the even-strength battle again but lost the special-teams battle, finally getting the power plays Brind’Amour demanded from the NHL but not doing anything with four of them while the Predators scored the game-tying goal in the third on one of only two they had.
That included one for the Hurricanes early in the first overtime, a second tremendous opportunity squandered after Brock McGinn scored at the end of the second period and the beginning of the third, 128 seconds apart, to give the Hurricanes their first lead, even if it was short-lived.
Nashville hasn’t made it easy on the Hurricanes, but the Hurricanes haven’t made it easy on themselves, either. They’ve been unable to consistently turn their utter dominance of possession into any dominance on the scoresheet against goalie Juuse Saros, unable to generate enough traffic in front of the net or second-chance opportunities, let alone finish the chances they are creating.
An insane total of 117 shots -- and 220 attempts -- led to only seven goals over the past two games.
“Guys can win you games, and that happens, but over a seven-game series, if you keep knocking on the door eventually you’ll get your goals,” Brind’Amour said.
BACK TO PNC ARENA TO START FROM SCRATCH
The Hurricanes have also made critical errors that have given the Predators openings they probably didn’t deserve, whether it was Jake Bean misplaying the game-winner in Game 3 or Dougie Hamilton’s lazy clear that set up the Predators’ opening goal Sunday despite what turned out to be the Hurricanes’ most one-sided period of the series.
Meanwhile, Alex Nedeljkovic was spectacular again to keep the Hurricanes close in both games on the road. He gave away one goal Sunday, but quickly got it back with a diving save on a two-on-none with the Hurricanes down a goal that could have blown the game open.
The Predators, at home and not missing their best defenseman, were better equipped for these marathons. The longer the games went, the better Nashville’s chances were.
For all that, the Hurricanes had more than enough chances to get the puck past Saros and win either or both of these road games in regulation, let alone the parade of overtimes, which would have dramatically altered the trajectory of this series. Instead, they’ll go home and start from scratch -- hoping Slavin returns sooner rather than later -- knowing what could easily have been the end Tuesday night is just the beginning.
