In Raleigh, the New York Rangers got an early goal from Filip Chytil and nearly made it stand up on Wednesday night.
The Hurricanes’ Sebastian Aho tied the game, 1-1, with just over two minutes left in the game to force extra time.
“We raised the level of our game, the intensity, and played with a little more desperation,” Carolina coach Rod Brind’Amour said. “We were lacking a little of that for two periods. It doesn’t always work out, but we had a real good third period obviously.”
Ian Cole scored the game winner off a deflection off a Rangers stick, early in the overtime.
“[Hurricanes defenseman Brendan Smith] shot it and it bounced right to me,” Cole said. “I was looking to pass it to someone, and no one was really anywhere dangerous. I was like, I guess I’ll throw it on net and see what happens. Hockey is a game of weird bounces, and it just happened to go in. Not the prettiest, but we’ll take it.”
The
Canes lead the series, 1-0.
“Definitely a tough loss,” New York coach Gerard Gallant said. “We’ve been there, done that. We’ve got to battle back. I was really happy with our game. [Carolina] put a big push on in the third period the first 10 minutes, and we weathered that storm. But the first two periods was perfect hockey for us. I thought it was our best game of the year, I really did.”
Antti Raanta made 27 saves in the Carolina win.
“When you haven’t got the chance to play these [games], you always question yourself like, what if I get the chance to play?” Raanta said. “It’s obviously been a lot of fun to play. Now the stakes are getting higher and higher all the time, but you’re just trusting your own thing.”
Game 2 is Friday in Raleigh.
“I didn’t think we got it deep enough,” the Rangers’ Mika Zibanejad said. “We got it out of our zone, but they regrouped pretty fast. They’re a quick team. That’s a really good team we’re playing. Let’s not forget about that. They got their push and got their crowd into it and got some momentum, and obviously the goal.”
Igor Shesterkin made 24 saves in the Rangers loss.
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