Rangers drop overtime heartbreaker to Hurricanes in Game 1

RALEIGH, N.C. — The Rangers had the Hurricanes right where they wanted them.

They were commanding every inch of the ice, actively taking away what made their opponents so effective and holding the lead. After not building on a one-goal lead when they had a chance, however, the Rangers gave up the game-tying goal with 2:23 left in regulation before Ian Cole won it 3:12 into overtime with a shot that went off Ryan Lindgren’s stick to give the Hurricanes a 2-1 win in Game 1 of their second-round playoff series Wednesday night at PNC Arena.

It was a major missed opportunity for the Rangers, who did enough to win this one before letting it slip away. An early lead in the series would’ve done wonders for their collective psyche and could’ve been the boost they needed to pull off the series upset. Instead, the Rangers trail a series 1-0 for the second time this postseason.

The Hurricanes seemingly waited until the third period Wednesday to break out all the traits that make them so lethal. Their forecheck suddenly came alive, their offensive-zone time came in bulk and they were much more diligent in creating dangerous scoring opportunities.

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The Rangers outshot Carolina in each of the first and second periods. But the Hurricanes went into desperation mode in the third, outshooting the Rangers 10-4, and Sebastian Aho eventually netted the equalizer to force overtime.

Rangers goalie Igor Shesterkin shut out the Hurricanes through two periods and saved eight of their nine shots in the final 20 minutes, but the rest of his team didn’t do enough to give him a cushion for his 24-save performance.

“We started sitting back a little bit too much, maybe,” Mika Zibanejad said. “I thought we played great for the first 50 [minutes] and had some good chances as well to make it 2-0. They got their push, they got their goal and they won in overtime. There’s a lot of good things we can take away from this game.”

It’s well-known what happened when the Rangers went down 1-0 and then 3-1 in games in the first round against Pittsburgh, but they are no longer facing the depleted Penguins. These are the mighty Hurricanes, and the opportunities to get ahead of them are going to be scarce.

Still, the Rangers are focusing on all that went right for them in Game 1 — and there was plenty.

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“I was really happy with our game,” head coach Gerard Gallant said. “They put a big push on in the third period for the first 10 minutes and we weathered that storm. But the first two periods was perfect hockey for us. We didn’t spend a lot of time in our zone, we got pucks out, we had a real good offensive chances.

“We didn’t capitalize on all of them, but I thought it was our best game of the year. I really did.”

Among the positive takeaways was the play of the Kid Line, featuring Alexis Lafreniere, Filip Chytil and Kaapo Kakko, which continued to be the Rangers’ most consistent unit, with a goal from Chytil at 7:07 of the first period that opened the scoring.

The Rangers were able to keep the Hurricanes to the perimeter and out of the dangerous areas of the ice for the most part. Shesterkin was sturdy and unfazed by the opposing crowd in the fourth road playoff game of his career.

Hurricanes backup goalie Antti Raanta, who is filling in for their injured No. 1 netminder Frederick Andersen, was the only thing standing between the Rangers and a multi-goal lead. The Blueshirts swarmed Raanta and peppered him with shots from everywhere for a majority of the game, but the ex-Ranger came up with crucial saves (27 in total) to keep the Hurricanes competitive.

“We’ve been in this position,” Chytil said. “So we just have to keep our heads up and we got a day off tomorrow, we practice, good meetings and just get ready for Friday’s game. I think we can take a lot of positives from this game. I think [for] two-and-a-half periods we play [how] we want to play and we dictated the tempo of the game.

“Unfortunately, they scored a goal. We have to build on this game and take all the positives to another game.”