Rangers fall into 0-2 hole
Allow short-handed goal; blanked by former teammate Raanta
Brendan Smith scored a short-handed goal late in the second while Antti Raanta finished with 21 saves to help the Carolina Hurricanes beat the New York Rangers 2-0 on Friday night, taking a 2-0 lead in their second-round playoff series.
Smith’s goal off a feed from Sebastian Aho marked his first postseason goal in nine years, and it was the difference in a tightly defended game by both teams with little space to operate and even fewer traffic-free looks at the net.
Aho added a clinching emptynet score with 1.8 seconds left.
The Hurricanes had flirted with tallying a short-handed goal earlier in the game multiple
times, including once when Teuvo Teravainen pinged the right post in the first period from the slot off a feed from Aho. It ended up foreshadowing the Hurricanes’ breakthrough score, with Aho skating in on the right side to set up Smith for a one-timer from the left that cleanly zipped past Igor Shesterkin for the putaway with 4:06 left in the second.
Carolina improved to 6-0 at home in the playoffs and has a 2-0 lead for the second straight round. Now they face the challenge of winning on the road for the first time in the postseason after claiming a seven-game first-round series against Boston in which no team managed a road win.
They’ll get their first chance to win at Madison Square Garden in Game 3 on Sunday. And the Rangers will try to mount another series comeback after rallying from a 3-1 deficit to beat Pittsburgh in a seven-game first-round series.
Note: Rick Bowness will not return as head coach of the Dallas Stars after nearly three seasons in which he led them to the 2020 Stanley Cup Final and the playoffs again this year. While Bowness was not under contract past this season, the 67-year-old coach said he was stepping away to “allow the organization the opportunity to pursue a different direction at the head coaching position.” General manager Jim Nill said assistant coaches John Stevens, Derek Laxdal and Todd Nelson also would not return.