The Rangers were 20 minutes away from a trip to the conference finals, but blunders in the third period allowed the Hurricanes to remain alive in this series.
The New York Rangers collapsed in the third period leading to a 4-1 victory for the Carolina Hurricanes in Game 5 on Monday night.
The Rangers held a commanding 3-0 series lead going into Game 4 with a chance for their second consecutive sweep, but the Hurricanes managed to squeak away with a 4-3 win.
However, the Rangers were headed back to New York for Game 5 and hopes were high that they could close out this series at Madison Square Garden.
Both teams remained scoreless up until the second period when Jacob Trouba scored a short-handed goal, putting the Rangers up 1-0.
While the Hurricanes dominated possession time in the middle frame, the Rangers managed to kill off three penalties and Carolina couldn’t seem to figure out Igor Shesterkin.
The Rangers were 20 minutes away from a berth to the conference finals. All of the sudden though, everything went downhill quickly for the home team.
Jordan Staal put the Hurricanes on the board early on in the third period and that really set the tone for the rest of the night.
Evgeny Kuznetsov and Jordan Martinook scored shortly after and the Rangers found themselves in a 3-1 hole.
The crowd at Madison Square Garden that was once roaring with excitement, fell silent as their team managed to completely collapse.
New York just looked out of sorts in the final period of play. They couldn’t manage to get anything going offensively while allowing Carolina to continue dominating possession time.
It wasn’t just their performance through the last 20 minutes that led to the Rangers’ downfall. All game long the Hurricanes were simply playing with more urgency, which led to physical domination.
For the majority of the night Shesterkin was lights out, but the Rangers can’t rely on their goaltender to bail them out, something that was shown tonight.
Now all the pressure is on the Rangers going into Carolina for Game 6. New York leads the series just 3-2 and the Hurricanes have seized much-needed momentum that could propel them to a massive upset.