The Carolina Hurricanes will have to put the brooms away as the New York Islanders salvaged their season with a 3-2 double overtime win in Game 4 at UBS Arena Saturday evening.
The Canes, despite outshooting the Isles 44-35, never looked quite comfortable in the game.
The Hurricanes mostly leaned on their power play to carry them to overtime, with Seth Jarvis scoring the first of the game early and Stefan Noesen tying it up late, but there just wasn't enough dangerous looks generated at 5v5.
It's not like the team played poorly — other than in the faceoff dot where Carolina won less than 1/3 of all the draws for the entire the game — but it wasn't quite Carolina Hurricanes hockey.
The Canes conceded the lead in the second period after a great solo effort by Mat Barzal on Brady Skjei and then fell behind after a JG Pageau power play goal to start the third period.
The Canes did tie it up with the late power play chance, but they fell in overtime with Skjei once again losing a battle to Barzal.
Much like the rest of the series has gone, both goaltenders continued to stand on their heads with Frederik Andersen turning aside 32 and Semyon Varlamov stopping 42.
The Isles came out of the gate hot and although Carolina's early goal took some wind out of their sails, they managed to stick around thanks to the play of their top players.
On the other hand, the Hurricanes' top dogs were a bit more MIA. The Canes have just two 5v5 goals from their top offensive forwards in this series and that's just not going to get it done.
Again, it's not like the Hurricanes' top six has been bad. They typically win their matchups and they generate chances, but at the end of the day, you have to put the puck in the net.
So when Carolina returns home to Raleigh for Game 5 on Tuesday, they need their top offensive guys to establish themselves and put the series to bed.