Recap: Hurricanes Rally, But Lose in a Shootout 3-2 to Panthers

Something about the Hurricanes’ comeback from 2-0 down on Tuesday night reminds me of the Carolina Panthers motto: Keep. Pounding.

Something else also reminds me of the Carolina Panthers this season: it ended in a tough loss, 3-2 to (appropriately) the Florida Panthers in a shootout.

The Hurricanes started the game with possibly this season’s slowest first period offensively, in which they only created three shots on net and dropped two goals behind. It hurt not having some usual scorers and distributors — Jeff Skinner was injured prior to gametime, Ron Hainsey and Viktor Stalberg had been traded in the last week, then Brock McGinn left injured in the first period, leaving the Canes down to ten forwards.

But the Hurricanes didn’t give up on themselves and pressed hard in the second.

Lee Stempniak put the Hurricanes on the scoreboard after nearly 30 minutes of ice time, but it’s Teuvo Teravainen who deserves the praise for that goal.

Teravainen, who has struggled recently to be a major offensive force, strung a pass through a defender and inches from the pads of Roberto Luongo to meet Stempniak at the left corner of the goal. From there, it was a tap-in.

In the third, the Hurricanes had to hold their own, blocking shots and playing the middle zone frequently, but with 5:48 left, Sebastian Aho slung a falling deflection off of Luongo past the goaltender’s stick hand, evening the score 2-2.

The Panthers put up a flurry of shots late in the third, and it took a bit of great goaltending by Cam Ward, a few blocked shots and some luck to escape to overtime.

But this far behind in the table, they needed two points (and tons of more of those (and probably a few divine interventions)).

After a back-and-forth overtime period yielding no goals, the teams moved to a shootout, where the Panthers had all the moves. Outside of a beautiful glove save by Ward, it was goals for Panthers and misses for Hurricanes.

The Hurricanes showed resiliency and escaped with a point, but in a desperate points situation, it doesn’t feel too reassuring.

What now? I guess we just...Keep. Pounding.

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