RANGERS DEFEAT HURRICANES 4-1 TO EVEN SERIES IN GAME 4 OF THE STANLEY CUP PLAYOFFS.
Carolina will host New York for Game 5 at home, where they are 6-0 in the postseason.
The New York Rangers are staking their claim as a dominant team when playing at home, winning their fifth straight in the postseason on Tuesday night in a 4-1 victory over the Carolina Hurricanes to even their second-round Stanley Cup Playoff series at two wins apiece.
The Rangers, after dropping 2-0 to start the series, had their best showing on Tuesday, maintaining a 3-0 lead until around the six-minute mark of the third period when Canes forward Teuvo Teravainen scored his third goal of the post-season.
But Andrew Copp would score with just nine minutes left in the period to give New York its second straight win of the series.
Frank Vatrano was first on the board with a power-play goal in the first period, followed by Adam Fox and Mika Zibanejad in the second.
“Everyone’s kind of contributing and has been over the course of the playoffs,” Copp, who finished the game with one goal and two assists, said. “It’s not just one line, one D-pairing, it’s throughout the lineup…. Just trying to build off some of the momentum we’ve created these last two games.”
“We’re confident,” Copp continued. “We get two games where we win, we play well, we give up two goals total. Now the reverse of the talk of you guys is on them now. We just got to kind of block all that out and stay with our game. Guys are feeling better about themselves and we got to ride this momentum into Carolina.”
Carolina, historically a challenging opponent for the Rangers, has struggled against New York’s gritty revival. They have scored just six goals in the series, including one in each of the last two games, and were 0-for-2 on the power play Tuesday to fall to 0-for-9 against the Rangers.
“We obviously wanted to come here and win some games,” Canes captain Jordan Staal said. “Disappointing effort obviously, especially today, but we’ll have to regroup tomorrow, figure out what we’re doing wrong and have a better effort and go win one at home.”
Carolina will host New York at home, where they are 6-0 in the postseason, for Game 5 on Thursday at 7 p.m. ET.
