Hurricanes’ Rod Brind’Amour reveals exactly what went wrong in Game 1 loss

The Carolina Hurricanes allowed two powerplay goals to the New York Rangers in Game 1 of their Eastern Conference second-round series on Sunday afternoon, and didn’t score a goal on five chances of their own. And that was the difference in the 4-3 defeat at Madison Square Garden — at least according to head coach Rod Brind’Amour.

“There’s different ways of looking at this game,” the bench boss told reporters after the Game 1 loss, according to NHL.com’s Shawn P. Roarke. “For me it was, obviously, we have to get better on the specialty-team area because if we go minus-2 in that area, it’s not going to work.”

The Canes allowed three goals to the Blueshirts — two of them on the powerplay — before the contest was 17 minutes old, and were never able to fully recover in the loss. Although Carolina would claw back from a pair of two-goal deficits, an Artemi Panarin goal halfway through the final frame ended up being the dagger.

“You can’t spot them a couple of goals like that, especially that team,” admitted captain Jordan Staal. “I thought we battled hard, got to our game, and whether they were sitting back or we were getting to our game, or a little bit of both, we had a chance to get it. We are going to learn from this.”

Although the first period didn’t go as planned from Carolina’s perspective, the rest of the game was a different story. The Canes drew five penalties and outshot their Metropolitan Division rivals 19-16 over the final two frames, including leading shot attempts 72-55 overall.

But it wasn’t enough against Igor Shesterkin, who made 22 saves for the Blueshirts. Still, it’s a long series, and the Hurricanes came close to tying things up late in regulation.

Hurricanes battled right until the end in Game 1