Gentille: The Hurricanes are out of answers — and nearly out of time

New York Times

25-05-2025

SUNRISE, Fla. — It's reductive to take hockey games and boil them down to single-word themes. In some instances, it might be unfair.
Still, for the Eastern Conference final — at least as it relates to the performances from the players who find themselves one loss away from packing up their lockers — we're going to do it anyway.
Advertisement
The Carolina Hurricanes' Game 1 loss brought defiance. They thought they played well enough to win, and in plenty of important ways, they were correct.
Their Game 2 loss brought confusion. 'We're all a little bit at a loss,' Taylor Hall said from his locker Thursday.
And their Game 3 loss — the most recent, most shocking and least competitive — seems to have brought some degree of resignation.
When you've been outscored 16-4 in 180 minutes of hockey, what's left?
When you spend 40 minutes taking care and being careful and playing the defending champions to a draw and starting to look like a team that's capable — in theory, if not practice — of making things interesting, only to get outscored 5-1 in the final period, where else is there to go?
When you're down 3-0 in a series to a team that, with each day, looks more and more like a fully functional Death Star, what else is there to do?
'Just win a hockey game. And play a lot better than that third period,' Hurricanes center Sebastian Aho said Saturday. 'Up until that point, I think, there was not much going on either way. And both had a few looks. Not much. At least that way, we were (giving ourselves) a chance to win a hockey game. But then (the third period's) just off their rails. Bad plays. And they make us pay, and it's game over.'
C'mon, boys pic.twitter.com/w9qASRv98Y
— Carolina Hurricanes (@Canes) May 25, 2025
The bad plays Aho mentioned started 89 seconds into the third period of a 1-1 game. The score was representative of the action. Up to that point, each team had six high-danger scoring chances and each had 39 shot attempts, per Natural Stat Trick. It was close, and then certainly was not.
A neutral-zone giveaway by Hall is what triggered the avalanche. Florida defenseman Aaron Ekblad pounced and shuffled the puck to Evan Rodrigues. Rodrigues left a back pass for Adam Boqvist, and Boqvist went hard to the net and embarrassed Carolina defenseman Dmitry Orlov. Uh-oh.
Advertisement
'I think the game was right there for us through two periods,' Hurricanes captain Jordan Staal said. 'And, you know, a quick turnover and they made us pay, and then they got rolling. It's a tough team to stop when you get the juices flowing and we're playing turnover city there. They're going to make you pay. But yeah, that was a tough goal.'
The Panthers made it 3-1 on a botched three-on-two defense by Orlov, who played the puck carrier (Sam Bennett) rather than the pass. They made it 4-1 on a botched zone exit by Orlov, who cleared the puck directly into Matthew Tkachuk's nameplate.
Orlov, by the way, is another recurring theme. The 33-year-old defenseman has been on the ice for 10 goals by the Panthers and zero by the Hurricanes. On Saturday night, a bad series turned into a horrific one.
'You can't,' Brind'Amour said when asked to explain Orlov's Game 3 performance. 'You can't. You've got to count on certain players. And you can't put it all on him, but I mean, some of the mistakes … you're not winning at this time when you (make mistakes) like that.'
Florida managed made it 5-1 without Orlov's involvement. Shayne Gostisbehere tried to reverse course behind Carolina's net and lost the puck; rookie partner Scott Morrow gathered it and flipped it directly to Aleksander Barkov. Barkov did not miss.
'I think we were there (after two periods); obviously, we were playing better,' Brind'Amour said. 'And then just to turn pucks over — it's not what we do. No one does that. And I think that was just pretty (surprising). I mean, you can't do that. And you can't do it any time.
'Preseason game, it's going to cost you. But against that team? And you turn over for an odd-man rush, forget it. And we know that. And that was really, I think, demoralizing.'
Staal, after the 6-2 demolition was complete, was asked if it was frustrating to grind, generate a bit and then have it slip away after one mistake.
Advertisement
'Yeah, it can be frustrating,' Staal said. 'It's one mistake … but they're big mistakes. You can't have partial breakaways and two-on-ones. It's one thing to give them a couple point shots or a couple of shots on the outside. It's big, big chances. And, you know, we can't do that.'
Asked if they were outclassed by a team with a core that's now beaten them in seven consecutive Eastern Conference playoff games, each more convincingly than the last, Staal's response was short.
'They gotta win four.'
It feels like his team's time remaining in the playoffs is short, too.