Carolina Hurricanes vs. New York Rangers: Game 1 Preview

After a couple days away from game action, the Carolina Hurricanes are back on the ice Wednesday night in PNC Arena as a second-round series with the New York Rangers gets started.

Both the Canes and the Rangers had to play all seven in the first round, with Carolina winning the final tilt against Boston Sunday and the Rangers beating the Penguins in overtime Sunday.

Now, the Hurricanes and Rangers will get going in what is sure to be a contentious series, as Carolina’s plethora of former New York players will look to topple their former team.

It’s an interesting series in terms of goaltending, as the Rangers bring in the heavy, heavy, heavy favorite for the Vezina in Igor Shesterkin while the Canes will likely still be riding with the regular season 1B in Antti Raanta.

Brian went into a deep dive on the goaltenders , but it’ll be interesting to see how it plays out. Raanta was far better than a backup in the opening round against Boston, and there’s no reason to believe that won’t continue. Despite some goals allowed, Shesterkin was actually pretty phenomenal in the first round and was probably the reason the Rangers won the series (again, see Brian’s piece above).

We also took a look at the skaters and the special teams, so be sure to check those out for some more in-depth analysis on the series as a whole.

Game Notes

• This is somehow only the second time the Rangers and Canes are meeting in the playoffs, and it’s the first time ever in the Stanley Cup Playoffs proper. The only other meeting was in a five-game qualifying round in the 2020 bubble, a three-game sweep over a New York team that featured quite a few guys residing in Raleigh now (who could forget Sebastian Aho walking now friend Tony DeAngelo).
• The Canes took the regular season series over the Rangers 3-1-0, with Aho contributing three goals and four assists in those seven games played.
• It wouldn’t be a Canes-Rangers matchup in 2022 without talking about the former Rangers on Carolina’s team. Tony DeAngelo (167 games), Jesper Fast (147), Antti Raanta (55), Brady Skjei (307), Brendan Smith (235) and Derek Stepan (515) all played for the Rangers.
• In other connections, Max Domi’s dad, Tie, played for the Rangers for a couple seasons and had an unbelievable 526 penalty minutes in 82 regular season games.
• The Canes can tie a franchise record for home win streak in the playoffs with a game one win Wednesday.
• Jaccob Slavin is on a three-game point streak, the only Canes’ skater carrying a streak into the second round.
• Teuvo Teravainen is one goal shy of passing Ron Francis for fifth on the Canes’ playoff goal leaderboard, and he’s one assist away from passing four players to move into eighth.
• Aho is two assists shy of becoming the franchise leader in playoff assists, and he’s two goals shy of moving into second on the franchise leaderboard.