Let me start with the most important takeaway from this game: it was a goalie duel.
We can all agree that all the best goaltenders are Russian, right?
Tuesday night, the denizens of PNC Arena were once again treated to a good ol' Russian goalie duel, but unfortunately this time, the home team wasn't the one that came out ahead.
Igor Shesterkin stopped all 28 shots he faced for his third shutout of the season, besting Pyotr Kochetkov who stopped 23 of 24.
Both goaltenders were marvelous though and in fact, not a single goal was scored directly off a stick. The lone score came from Adam Fox throwing a puck towards the slot from the half-wall where it deflected in off of Brady Skjei's boot.
While Shesterkin got the win, it could be argued that Kochetkov was the more impressive goaltender last night.
The Hurricanes netminder faced a 2-on-0, two breakaways, multiple redirections in front and again, the only thing that beat him was a puck going off of his own defenseman.
So Shesterkin was great, but I just thought Kochetkov had the more impressive outing.
"He's been good for quite a while," Brind'Amour said. "That's been the thing that changed our year. He's been solid and gave us a chance tonight. That's all you can ask."
Jake Guentzel was another storyline as he made his Hurricanes debut in the loss, playing on a line with Evgeny Kuznetsov and Martin Necas.
While he was just alright in his first game back in nearly a month, his line led the team in expected goals and high-danger chances.
"They probably had the best chances on the night for us," Brind'Amour said. "Again, it's going to take some time to get everyone up to speed with what we're doing. But overall, those guys might have been the best line for us."
If the Canes can just get that line to click, it's going to be a nasty trio.
Tuesday night was also the 17th straight game that the Hurricanes have had less power plays than their opponents.
It's a perplexing trend as Carolina is one of the league's best puck possession and pressuring teams has been the better in nearly every one of those games.
But for some reason, the whistles aren't coming out, which is weird when you see a play like Skjei being tripped and then having his stick held off a clean o-zone faceoff win late in the third period.
Making the right call there could have changed the game, but the right calls aren't being made for whatever reason.
Overall, the 1-0 loss for the Carolina Hurricanes wasn't a terrible game. It was a pretty hard-fought match between two of the top teams in the Eastern Conference and it ultimately came down to one lucky bounce.
The Canes didn't love their start obviously, getting outshot 11-5, but then they flipped the script in the second period and outshot the Rangers 11-5.
The third period started to open up with both sides exchanging chances, but nothing was getting past those two netminders.
"The first period, we were not ready for what they threw at us," Brind'Amour said. "That's legit. There's a reason why they're a top team and they showed it. We were not ready. Then I thought the second was kind of flipped. It was almost the opposite, but we didn't get the one to even it up. In the third, we were pushing a little bit and gave up a few too many, but [Kochetkov] played really well. Their goalie made a couple of nice saves too to keep them in it, but we probably didn't generate enough to really put the heat on them."
Even with nearly two minutes of 6-on-5 play, the Canes couldn't get anything past Shesterkin.
To be honest, they haven't really been able to get much of anything past anyone this year with the extra attacker.
Carolina has scored just one equalizing goal with the extra attacker this season: Sebastian Aho scoring with three seconds left against the New York Islanders on Nov. 30 (Carolina lost that game in overtime).
That's the worst rate in the league.
They get chances, but they just haven't been able to get those big goals like they did so often last season.
"We haven't snuck one in 6-on-5 yet, I really don't think," said Jordan Staal. "I think we can do a better job. Obviously a quick play off of faceoffs. We have to find a way to get it to the net. After that, it's just finding ways to get it on net and create chaos and out-man them around the net. I don't think we've done a good enough job as a group to score those big goals and tonight was no different."