This was a long way away from being the Carolina Hurricanes’ best game of the season. They were sloppy on the powerplay, they were sloppy on the penalty kill, and they couldn’t support their netminder at all. This isn’t to say Pyotr Kochetkov had his best game in his young NHL career, but expecting a rookie netminder playing in his fourth career playoff game to hold the fort in TD Garden against the Boston Bruins.
From the opening draw, this looked like it could have been game footage from the first two games. Carolina strikes first despite having an awful start and having to kill off a couple of early penalties.