Game 4 takeaways: Rangers miss out on chance for record-setting sweep

RALEIGH, N.C. - A second-round sweep and a new franchise record were not meant to be.

The Rangers nearly pulled it off when Alexis Lafrenière tied the score early in the third period of Game 4 at PNC Arena, but a late power-play goal from Brady Skjei sealed Saturday's 4-3 win for the desperate Carolina Hurricanes. It also handed New York its first loss of these playoffs after starting 7-0 for the first time since 1994.

That forced Game 5 on Monday at 7 p.m. at Madison Square Garden, where the Blueshirts will have another chance to punch their ticket to the Eastern Conference Final.

"We gotta win one game at home," defenseman Adam Fox said. "They're not going to go down easy and just give us that fourth win. We’re definitely going to have to earn it, but I think this group's shown all year how resilient we are, and I'm pretty confident how we'll respond."

Resiliency: Rangers 'calm confidence' has spurred playoff success

Skjei's slap shot from the point found a lane to put the Canes ahead with 3:11 left in Game 4, snapping a remarkable stretch of 24 consecutive penalties killed by the Rangers, including 16 straight to begin this series.

"We always have a little bit of disappointment giving one up, but sometimes you tip your cap," captain Jacob Trouba said of New York's penalty kill. "It was a good shot. I don't think it was necessarily a massive breakdown by the PK."

The Hurricanes finally won the special teams' battle after being outscored 5-0 in those situations through the first three games. Of equal importance was their discipline in staying out of the penalty box to keep the Blueshirts' red-hot power play off the ice.

After being given 13 PP opportunities and converting four of them coming into Game 4, they were limited to only one late first-period chance on Saturday, which they failed to convert.

That enabled the Canes to pull out nail-biting win, despite posting a modest total of 31 shots after combining for 104 in the previous two games. The key was beating the NHL's hottest goalie, Igor Shesterkin, four times to snap his impressive streak of 30 consecutive playoff games without allowing more than three.

"I thought (the Rangers) played a great game," Carolina coach Rod Brind'Amour said. "I thought we came out well, which, that was very, very important. And then I thought they answered the bell and had a good game. It actually might have been, for us, our least effective game overall. Hockey is weird. You get the bounce here or there, you get a shot that goes in, and that's what happened. We live to fight another day."

The Rangers were notably without Filip Chytil, who returned for Game 3 on Thursday following an injury absence that dragged out over six months but did not play in Game 4 for what the team has vaguely described as illness.

Jonny Brodzinski stepped in for his second career playoff game, with Chytil’s status for the rest of the series unclear.

A tough first period

The first period could reasonably be called the Rangers' worst so far in these playoffs.

That's not saying a whole lot considering they had won seven straight, but the Hurricanes had them on their heels from the start.

"We dug ourselves a hole early," Blueshirts coach Peter Laviolette said. "I don't think it was because we weren't ready to play. The (scoring) chances were probably 7-6 us, or 6-6, somewhere in that area. It wasn't a lot, but the ones that we gave up were pretty noisy. They were loud, and we gotta come out a little bit sharper than that. We're competing. We were working. We were trying to do our job offensively, but there's some things defensively that I felt we could have been a little bit better in the first period."

It began 1:51 into the contest, with a Barclay Goodrow turnover putting New York in an early hole. His attempted pass through the neutral zone was intercepted cleanly by Evgeny Kuznetsov, who raced in toward the Rangers' net and fired a rising wrister past Shesterkin to give Carolina a 1-0 lead.

The lead was doubled 4:42 later, with Stefan Noesen ending a possession that was extended by a failed clear attempt by sneaking behind the Blueshirts' defense to bury a Teuvo Teravainen rebound.

The Rangers briefly cut the deficit to 2-1 when Kaapo Kakko weaved a pass through two defenders to spring a Will Cuylle breakaway goal, but the Canes ended their highest-scoring period of the series with one more tally.

This one came on a quick feed from Jake Guentzel to Sebastian Aho, with the one-timer finish upping Carolina's lead to 3-1 at the 15:29 mark.

That concluded a tough stretch for the Rangers' line featuring Artemi Panarin, Vincent Trocheck and Alexis Lafrenière, who were on for both the Noesen and Aho goals, as well as the D pair of Erik Gustafsson and Trouba, with the former on for two of the Canes' tallies and the latter on for all three.

Failed breakouts and turnovers were part of the problem, as was getting caught too far up the ice when those attempts sputtered, as Trouba did on the Aho goal.

"They come out strong at home," Trouba said. "This building, especially the first 10, 15 minutes, is pretty tough. They had a good start. They played well. They got on forecheck. When we started getting pucks behind them, they pinch pretty tight, and I thought that was when we kind of started breaking down and opening up a little bit of space. Their forwards did a good job of using that space and generating offense."

Rally comes up short

New York responded with a much steadier second period, during which it turned up the offensive pressure and generated a handful of quality scoring chances.

Two of those hit the post − one from Lafrenière, then another Alex Wennberg − before Goodrow finally broke through to cut the deficit to 3-2 at the 12:43 mark. He scored his second goal of the playoffs by tipping a Braden Schneider shot past Frederik Andersen, who returned to the Canes' net after sitting Game 3 in favor of rookie Pyotr Kochetkov.

Carolina had some close calls of its own, including a Guentzel breakaway in the waning seconds of the period, but Shesterkin stopped all 13 shots he faced in the middle 20 minutes to keep the Rangers within striking distance.

"Second period, I thought our guys really pushed to get back in the game," Laviolette said. "We talked about winning the second period − just winning the second. It didn't matter the score; set it up for the third period. We did that."

Lafrenière, who turned it on after the shaky first period and was one of the Blueshirts' most noticeable players all night, took advantage by sneaking a shot from below the goal line in off Andersen's back for his team-leading fourth goal of the series.

That tied the score at 3-3 with 17:56 to play, highlighting the budding confidence of the 22-year-old forward in these playoff settings. He’s up to 10 points (four goals and six assists) through eight games, which ranks third for the Rangers behind Mika Zibanejad (13) and Trocheck (12), while his seven points at five-on-five are tied for the NHL lead with Edmonton’s Zach Hyman.

"He seems to be getting stronger," Laviolette said. "I thought he could have had three or four goals. ... It seemed like it was on his stick. You knew it was coming. I bumped him on the bench and said, ‘It's coming.’ It was nice to continue to see him take steps in the playoffs and be a difference maker. I thought he was tonight. I don't think he was rewarded like maybe the way he should have been offensively for the amount of looks and the positions he put himself into."

The defense tightened for both sides in the final 20 minutes, when New York and Carolina combined for only 13 shots on goal. But a tripping penalty on defenseman Ryan Lindgren with 3:43 to play setup the heroics from Skjei, the former Ranger.

There weren't any glaring lapses on the play, but the result ended the Blueshirts' bid for their third consecutive comeback win. Still, the rally from behind served as yet another example of their unfazed demeanor in these tight games, inspiring confidence in the locker room that they'll be able to close this series out with a few more cracks at it.

"Overall, I thought the effort was there," Fox said. "We would have loved to be able to win this game here and move on, but you know they're not going go down too easy. So, regroup, learn from some of the mistakes, and try and get that win on home ice."

Vincent Z. Mercogliano is the New York Rangers beat reporter for the USA TODAY Network. Read more of his work at lohud.com/sports/rangers/ and follow him on Twitter @vzmercogliano.

This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Game 4 takeaways: Rangers miss out on chance for record-setting sweep