Hurricanes stun Rangers with dominant third period

Mika Zibanejad found it a bit of a leading question when he was asked if the Rangers played aggressively enough in the third period.

“I guess with that question you don’t think so,” Zibanejad said after the Hurricanes scored all of their goals in the final 20 minutes to stave off elimination for a second straight time in a 4-1 win in Game 5 of their second-round series on Monday night at Madison Square Garden.

“No, I would agree,” Zibanejad quickly conceded. “I think we came up with a big [penalty] kill to start off the third. We probably wanted a little more offensive-zone time in the third, trying to create a little more chances. But they score and get momentum from that.”

The Hurricanes were dominant in the third period in their five-game series win in the first round, outscoring the Islanders 10-1. But against the Rangers, the Hurricanes hadn’t scored a third-period goal with their goalie on the ice since Game 1.

Hurricanes coach Rod Brind’Amour hasn’t been displeased with his team’s third-period efforts in this series, and he certainly liked the Game 5 results. According to  NaturalStatTrick, the Hurricanes had a 4-1 edge in high-danger chances in the third period, part of a 13-5 advantage for the game, even though they outshot the Rangers by only 10-6 in the final 20 minutes.

“I think finally some breaks, or whatever you want to call it, just went our way,” Brind’Amour said. “Obviously, there’s a high level of desperation to our game.”

The Rangers started the third period killing off the final 1:50 of Will Cuylle’s tripping penalty, with just one shot getting through to Igor Shesterkin. Three others were blocked.

But Jordan Staal slipped past defenseman Braden Schneider to get to the crease and backhand a shot  past Shesterkin to tie the score at 1-1 at 3:33 of the third period. Evgeny Kuznetsov, celebrating with his usual flapping bird flourish, skated past Artemi Panarin to knock in a rebound for what proved to be the winner at 6:39. Jordan Martinook, in the slot, gave the Hurricanes a two-goal edge at 9:56 before Martin Necas added an empty-netter.

“They played really well in the third and we just didn’t give it enough,” said a terse Vincent Trocheck, answering the same question posed to Zibanejad. “They wanted it more.”

“They got a quick back-to-back,” said  Jacob Trouba, who scored the Rangers’ lone goal on a shorthanded rush at 6:23 of the second period. “That’s tough, but you’ve got to put a stop to that. We didn’t do that. It’s a bad period. I don’t think we’re going to sit here and break it down 100 times and try to fix a bunch of things. We played a bad period, but we’ve played a pretty consistently good game throughout the playoffs.”

Rangers coach Peter Laviolette said his team’s issues in Game 5 “went deeper” than being outscored 4-0 in the third period.

“I don’t think we were sharp,” he said.

Or aggressive enough while  playing with the lead to enter the third period, leading question or not.

By Andrew Gross

andrew.gross@newsday.comAGrossNewsday

Andrew Gross joined Newsday in 2018 to cover the Islanders. He began reporting on the NHL in 2003 and has previously covered the Rangers and Devils. Other assignments have included the Jets, St. John’s and MLB.