As Rangers enter Game 6 against Hurricanes, do they stay the course or make big changes?

RALEIGH, N.C. – With the pressure of having lost two straight weighing heavily on their shoulders as they tried, for the third time, to close out this second-round playoff series against the Carolina Hurricanes Thursday in Game 6 at PNC Arena, the question was posed to coach Peter Laviolette before the game:

Is it time to change things up or should you stay the course and continue to try and do what worked well enough to provide seven straight wins to start the playoffs?

“There's always things, I think, that change inside of a series. Small changes,’’ he said. “In a regular season… you play one team and then you move on to a different team with different systems and different ways that they play. And I think you really focus on your identity and your system in the regular season.

“When you play in the playoffs, I do think that there's -- and there has been already -- small changes with what we do, and how we play the game,’’ he continued. “There's things that we talk about, (how) we can do better in all scenarios and things that are working well for us and try to get better at those. And try to fix the ones that aren't working as well.’’

Perhaps the biggest change the Rangers needed was a change in attitude. Though they held a 3-2 lead in the series entering Thursday and insisted they were still “in the driver’s seat,’’ two straight losses should have instilled some desperation in them to try and avoid having to face the randomness of a Game 7 Saturday at Madison Square Garden.

And as Laviolette suggested on a conference call with reporters on Tuesday, it’s possible the Rangers just weren’t desperate enough to win in Games 4 and 5.

“Desperation is a funny thing,’’ he had said Tuesday. “You can't give it to them. They have to feel it and you have to be in it. And then you can rise to that level. And so, we move into the next game and you realize now that the window's a little bit smaller (to win the series). And that desperation level rises.’’

As far as actual on-ice adjustments, though, one of the things Laviolette showed in his team’s practice Wednesday was reconfigured defense pairs. He reunited longtime defense partners Jacob Trouba and K’Andre Miller after he’d gone the end of the regular season and the first nine games of the playoffs with Miller playing with young Braden Schneider and Trouba with veteran Erik Gustafsson.

Also, based on who participated in the team’s optional morning skate Thursday, there was the suggestion, at least, that young forward Matt Rempe would be coming out of the lineup in favor of Jonny Brodzinski.

As far as the potential defense pair changes, Trouba happened to have been on ice for half of the 16 goals Carolina had scored in the first five games of the series (including one was while he was on the penalty kill, and the Hurricanes scored their lone power-play goal of the series).

The public analytics numbers, though, suggest that the Miller-Schneider pair and the Gustafsson-Trouba pair had basically performed roughly the same for the postseason.

According to the analytics site Natural Stat Trick, in the nine playoff games entering Thursday, Miller-Schneider had been on ice for four goals for the Rangers, and five against, the same as Gustafsson-Trouba. Miller-Schneider were on for 54 shots for vs. 74 against, and 118 shot attempts for vs. 156 against. Gustafsson-Trouba were on for 48 shots for vs. 52 against, and 108 attempts or and 150 against.

But aside from tweaking personnel or personnel combinations, there were strategic changes the Rangers could try to make, too, such as perhaps making a special emphasis to try and take more shots against Carolina goalie Frederik Andersen. Carolina, renowned as a high shot-volume team, outshot the Rangers in every game except Game 1. In Game 5, when the Rangers admitted they played a stinker, they managed just 21 shots at Andersen.

“I think more shot attempts are always a good thing,’’ said forward Chris Kreider, who was expected to play in Game 6 after missing Wednesday’s practice because of what the Rangers described as “maintenance.’’ “Getting pucks in there, and getting bodies into that zone one (the area in front of the goal crease), that's something that every team talks about, especially this time of year.’’

“I think (taking shots is) always a priority,’’ forward Jimmy Vesey said. “You definitely want to generate, 5-on-5, and I think that's something… you can always look to improve that.’’

By Colin Stephenson

colin.stephenson@newsday.comColinSNewsday

Colin Stephenson covers the Rangers for Newsday. He has spent more than two decades covering the NHL and just about every sports team in the New York metropolitan area.