In New York, Mika Zibanejad hot for a double and three points on Sunday evening in a 4-3 win for the Rangers over the Carolina Hurricanes in their second round Game 1 affair. 
“As an offensive guy, you want to get involved and when you score and you’re able to contribute to a win, and help your team win, that’s a good feeling,” Zibanejad said. “But it’s one game. We’ve just got to keep going.”
He scored his double in the opening stanza.
The first was off a terrific pass pass from Jack Roslovic from below the Canes goal line to Zibanejad who was left uncontested in the slot for a quick snap shot and a 1-0 lead.
The goal came at 2:48, and the lead lasted all of 62 seconds when Jacob Slavin’s shot tied the game at 3:48. His soft shot bounced off the ice and into the net.
“It’s clear our start and our special teams were the difference tonight, and we’ve always talked about that all year long,” the Hurricanes’ Jordan Staal said. “… You win that battle you have a really good chance of winning, and we didn’t tonight. Both of them weren’t good enough, obviously.”
Zibanejad hit his double midway through the first on a power play strike.
With the Cane’s Tony DeAngelo off for a minor, Chris Kreider took a pass from Vincent Trocheck at the right side of the cage and sent a blind pass to Zibanejad at the bottom of the left circle for a one timer and a 2-1 lead.
“Playoffs for me is completely game to game,” Rangers coach Peter Laviolette said. “We’re going to have to take a look at what we did right, try to bring that back to the table. … We’re going to have to elevate our game as well.”
At 16:28 of the first, Trocheck batted in a rebound of a shot by Zibanejad from the left side of the cage, sending the game to the middle frame with the Rangers up, 3-1.
“We really wanted to have a good start, especially at home, Game 1. Been off for a few days here and able to rest, and I thought that was most noticeable,” Zibanejad said. “Guys were excited to play, and obviously when we were able to score on our chances early on and get a little bit more momentum. That was good.”
Igor Shesterkin made 22 saves in the win.
“Mika does everything for us,” Kreider said. “Face-offs, responsible in his own zone, detailed, contributes offensively. We’re really lucky to have two centermen (Zibanejad and Trocheck) like that.”
After a scoreless middle frame, Martin Necas closed the gap to 3-2 at 2:48 of the third.
The Rangers replied with a back breaker goal.
Game 2 of the series is set for Tuesday at Madison Square Garden.
At 8:21 of the third, Alexis Lafreniere corralled n errant puck on a turnover at center ice, took two strides and fed Artemi Panarin a lead pass.
Panarin broke in on the left wing, with Trocheck on his right, but elected to shoot. The puck dribbled through the pads for a 4-2 lead to the Rangers.
“It’s obviously nice to score tonight but more important is the [win],” Panarin said.
Seth Jarvis trimmed the deficit to 4-3 at 18:15 of the third. The Canes were skating with an extra skater.
“I thought we played a pretty good game,” Hurricanes coach Rod Brind’Amour said. “A couple of kills we didn’t quite execute right, and they did. … Other than that, really 20 seconds worth of specialty time where we just didn’t execute and they did, we had a pretty good game.”
Carolina was scoreless in five power play chances; the Rangers scored on their two chances.
“We did a lot of good things in that game, especially at the end,” Carolina’s Sebastian Aho said. “We put good pressure on them and we got one goal back, and (getting) the second wasn’t too far either, so just have to build off that.”
Shesterkin protected slim lead for the Game 1 win. 
Frederik Andersen made 19 saves in the loss.
“Especially in an emotional building like this, it always seems to get everyone riled up, and we were at fault again,” Staal said.
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