If all you heard was the booing every time Tony DeAngelo touched the puck, or the “Tony sucks” chant in the third period, how would you know DeAngelo had left and come back since the Carolina Hurricanes’ last playoff game at Madison Square Garden?
And if you didn’t notice Vincent Trocheck was on the other team, or Frederik Andersen was on the ice instead of in the press box, it was hard to tell, even with all the different names and faces, that this was 2024 and not 2022.
That’s how it felt for the Hurricanes, too.
The New York Rangers’ power play was the game-breaking difference?
The Hurricanes lost a playoff game on 33rd Street?
What year is this, anyway?
The Hurricanes picked up where they left off two years ago at the Garden in the postseason with a 4-3 loss to open the second round, and it was less the fact of the loss that was so jarring than how familiar the story was despite all the time that had elapsed since the last one.
Special teams. Boom.
Or “boom, boom,” as DeAngelo put it, because the Rangers needed only 23 seconds of their two power plays to score twice.
The Hurricanes actually played as well or better in this one than they did in any of the three losses in 2022, rebounding from a helter-skelter first period that included both Rangers power-play goals. Five-on-five, they’ll take it, especially the second and third periods. If the hyped-up crowd goaded them into a couple early penalties, they kept their discipline after that. Frederik Andersen might like a couple goals back, but so would Igor Shesterkin. That battle, at least, was a draw.
But if the Rangers are going to finish both of their power-play chances in mere seconds and the Hurricanes are going to go 0-for-5 — the fifth lasting only six seconds thanks to a soft and late penalty on Andrei Svechnikov that felt like a make-up call for the puck-over-glass call that put the Hurricanes on the power play in the first place — it doesn’t really matter what else happens.
Both goals happened so quickly that it was abundantly clear how thin the margin of error is for the Hurricanes short-handed. One faceoff loss. One slightly lost coverage. The Rangers have made a habit of making the Hurricanes pay for any slippage, and they did it again Sunday.
“They have some great players,” Hurricanes captain Jordan Staal said. “Our kill is predicated on pressure and they have to make three or four great passes to get a Grade A and they did. It was pretty evident. They made some good plays. We’ll adjust. We’ll find ways to pressure at the right times and the right opportunities and make sure we do a better job.”
Hockey can be a complex game full of mystery and wonder, hard to pin down statistically or analytically because of the whirling bodies and crazy bounces and the difference an inch or two can make one way or another. The Grand Unifying Theory of hockey has so far eluded definition.
But it can also be a simple game, because in the end, it’s binary: the puck either goes in or it doesn’t.
The Rangers, in 23 seconds with an extra man on the ice, scored twice. The Hurricanes, in more than eight minutes of power-play time, never did, although Seth Jarvis’ late goal came with Andersen on the bench for an extra attacker.
In Game 1, it was that simple. And in that respect, just like 2022.
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