Canes’ historic streaks snapped in loss to Rangers

The Carolina Hurricanes’ historic point and win streaks came to an end Tuesday night in Madison Square Garden, as Carolina dropped a tightly contested game 5-3 to the Rangers.

The loss was the first for the Hurricanes since Dec. 6, and it was their first loss in regulation since Nov. 23.

The Canes held leads of 1-0, 2-1 and 3-2 in the game, but a third-period burst from the Rangers led to Carolina’s point streak ending at 17 games. Brent Burns, Martin Necas and Jalen Chatfield did the scoring for the Canes, while Pyotr Kochetkov stopped 26 of 30 shots faced.

It was a fast-paced first period which started out really well for the Hurricanes, as Burns opened up the scoring just over seven minutes in on a scramble in front of Shesterkin. Jaccob Slavin fired in a shot that broke his stick, and after a deflection Shesterkin couldn’t control the rebound.

Paul Stastny did great work in front of the crease to box out a defenseman, allowing Burns to crash towards the net and poke the puck forward. A fortunate bounce for the Hurricanes made it 1-0.

After Carolina controlled a lot of the 5-on-5 play, New York got a chance on the power play after Sebastian Aho was called for an offensive-zone hooking. The Rangers very quickly used the extra skater to their advantage, as Trouba tallied to make it 1-1.

But as quickly as New York tied things up, the Canes had the lead right back. Right after the power-play equalizer, Carolina got the puck forward, crashed the net and Andrei Svechnikov set Necas up for a one-time snipe past Shesterkin.

The goal was the 17th of the season for Necas, a new career high in just 38 games played.

On a sour note in the first period for the Canes, forward Stefan Noesen took an awkward spill and went to the locker room. Noesen came back out to try and warm up for the second period, but headed back to the room again before the start of the period and was ruled out for the rest of the night.

The story of most of the second period was that of special teams play, as the Canes and Rangers combined to commit six penalties in the middle period. The penalty kill was the stronger side of most of those, though New York broke through on the final power play of the period to tie things at 2-2.

After a second penalty on Burns, Zibanejad scored on the power play on an odd goal that Kochetkov will want back. Zibanejad was looking for Vincent Trocheck in front of the net, but the former Hurricane never touched the pass in and it scooted right between Kochetkov’s legs.

But just as they did in the first period, the Hurricanes answered the power play goal almost immediately. Just 29 seconds after New York tied the game, Chatfield fired a shot into traffic that deflected off Filip Chytil and past Shesterkin to make it 3-2 Canes headed into the second intermission.

The Rangers took less than 40 seconds in the third to tie the game at 3-3, as Panarin scored through traffic on a goal not too dissimilar to the Zibanejad goal. Panarin skated the puck around the zone and fired low through some traffic, and through a screen the puck went through Kochetkov’s legs.

Midway through the third period, the Rangers took their first lead of the night thanks to K’Andre Miller, as a deflected puck in traffic beat Kochetkov to make it 4-3 after the Canes failed to clear the zone.

The Canes had a chance on the power play late in the game and couldn’t convert — despite a prime chance from Seth Jarvis — and had to go on the penalty kill for a really harsh call against Jordan Martinook with 2:45 left for “playing” the puck with a broken stick. Carolina pulled Kochetkov to even the numbers, and Chytil made it 5-3.

Carolina will now look to have to bounce back for the first time in a long time Thursday at home against the Predators.