Ben Verbrugge is a freelance sportswriter with a journalism degree from CSU Dominguez Hills. He is a member of the Los Angeles media and spends most of his time covering the NBA, NFL, and MLB. When not writing, he is either playing or watching sports.
🎙️ Voice is AI-generated. Inconsistencies may occur.
The Phoenix Mercury (0-1) travel to Barclays Center to face the New York Liberty (1-0) in Game 2 of their first-round WNBA Playoff series.
Natasha Cloud #9 of the New York Liberty looks to pass the ball while Kahleah Copper of the Phoenix Mercury and DeWanna Bonner #14 attempt to take the ball during overtime at PHX Arena on… Natasha Cloud #9 of the New York Liberty looks to pass the ball while Kahleah Copper of the Phoenix Mercury and DeWanna Bonner #14 attempt to take the ball during overtime at PHX Arena on September 14, 2025 in Phoenix, Arizona.
The Liberty find themselves with a golden opportunity to move into the second round of the WNBA Playoffs after a grueling 76-69 road win in overtime on Sunday. After a very fast-paced second quarter that was won 30-27 by the Mercury, the Liberty tightened the screws defensively, allowing just 26 total points in the second and overtime combined.
Offensively, New York got what they needed from their stars, with Natasha Cloud leading the team, scoring 23 points to go with six rebounds, five assists, and four steals. Breanna Stewart added 18 points, six rebounds, and four assists, with Sabrino Ionescu playing a team-high 42:59, scoring 16 points with six rebounds and seven assists.
If the Mercury are going to force a Game 3, they’ll have to figure out the Liberty defense that held them to a paltry 32.5% from the field and 23.1% from the 3-point line. Those numbers, while poor, cratered further when looking at just the second half, where the Mercury shot an abysmal 20.7% from the field and 18.2% from the 3-point line.
Regional restrictions may apply. If you purchase a product or register for an account through one of the links on our site, we may receive compensation.
May 7, 2024; New York, New York, USA; New York Rangers left wing Chris Kreider (20) celebrates his goal against the Carolina Hurricanes with left wing Artemi Panarin (10) and center Vincent Trocheck (16) during the third period of game two of the second round of the 2024 Stanley Cup Playoffs at Madison Square Garden. Mandatory Credit: Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sports
Brad Penner
Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sports
New York
Instead of a road win, or a power-play goal, or much of anything to show for their commendable effort in the first two games of this series, the Carolina Hurricanes now have questions. Lots of questions. They’ll bring a planeload of them home with them, and very few answers.
That is the way of the postseason, sometimes, as the twists and turns of a series loop back on each other and the pitter-patter of little issues becomes a drumbeat of failure. This is where the Hurricanes find themselves after Tuesday’s 4-3 double-overtime loss to the New York Rangers, and even with the additional period and a half, the verses were different from Game 1 but the chorus was the same.
The goaltending wasn’t good enough to win it. Their five-on-five dominance hasn’t been rewarded. And their special teams have been an unmitigated catastrophe.
The Hurricanes had a one-goal lead in the third period Tuesday before the Rangers tied it with a power-play goal and won it with a power-play goal. Between those two back-breaking goals, the Hurricanes had two power plays of their own, either of which would have won the game and brought home-ice advantage back to Raleigh instead of just simmering frustration.
“We’re right there,” said Jake Guentzel, who scored twice in his best game of the playoffs so far. “It’s a small margin for error in the playoffs. We’ve got to buckle down on the power play and find a way to get one there.”
Two one-goal losses. Minus-4 on special teams. A recipe for disaster. Seven of the Hurricanes’ last 11 playoff games have been one-goal losses. If the playoffs are a contest of fine margins, the Hurricanes are ending up on the wrong side too often.
So now, questions.
Lots of questions.
Is it time to give Pyotr Kochetkov a look in goal? Frederik Andersen gave up a ton of rebounds and the game-tying and game-winning goals both came after shots he initially saved. Andersen hasn’t been terrible, but he hasn’t outplayed Igor Shesterkin, either.
What about the penalty-kill, which has allowed four power-play goals in two games? The Rangers were 2-for-7 on the power play Tuesday, which suggests that it may be a problem of volume as much as execution.
May 7, 2024; New York, New York, USA; New York Rangers defenseman K’Andre Miller (79) and center Vincent Trocheck (16) separate Carolina Hurricanes right wing Andrei Svechnikov (37) from Rangers goaltender Igor Shesterkin (31) during the second overtime of game two of the second round of the 2024 Stanley Cup Playoffs at Madison Square Garden. Mandatory Credit: Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sports Brad Penner Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sports
The Hurricanes are too often playing into the Rangers’ hands that way. It contributed to Evgeny Kuznetsov’s benching for Game 2, after Adam Fox goaded him into a retaliatory cross-check, and Fox did it again Tuesday. Fox snuck in a punch to Guentzel’s face in a scrum, then buckled like his lights went out when Guentzel returned fire, drawing a penalty. (To that point, it was Guentzel’s best shot of the playoffs, a distinction it did not hold for long.)
At a certain point, that’s not on the Rangers. Leopard, spots, etc. It’s on the Hurricanes for giving them the opportunities. Which they did over and over again. (Andrei Svechnikov, master of the offensive-zone penalty, took two of them.)
And then there’s the power play, officially 0-for-10 in the series but really 0-for-8, given that two opportunities were cut short immediately by Hurricanes penalties. The Hurricanes have retreated to their worst instincts, passing the puck passively around the perimeter, waiting for perfection instead of putting the puck on net.
May 7, 2024; New York, New York, USA; New York Rangers left wing Chris Kreider (20) skates with the puck against Carolina Hurricanes defenseman Tony DeAngelo (77) during the third period of game two of the second round of the 2024 Stanley Cup Playoffs at Madison Square Garden. Mandatory Credit: Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sports Brad Penner Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sports
Can the power play even be fixed at this point, before it’s too late? Has it become too predicable, an open book to playoff opponents who have figured out how to stop it? Given how close the Hurricanes came to winning one or both of these games, is it too late already?
“We have to be sharper,” Hurricanes coach Rod Brind’Amour said. “We have to get inside. We’re on the outside and it’s just not how we do it, anyway. We’ve got to get back to doing it how we know how.”
The series isn’t over yet. Far from it. The Hurricanes are headed home with a chance to come back here next week on even terms, asking all the questions for a change. It’s what the Rangers did to them after falling behind 2-0 on the road in 2022.
But unlike their power play through two games, the Hurricanes will actually have to take advantage.
Never miss a Luke DeCock column. Sign up at tinyurl.com/lukeslatest to have them delivered directly to your email inbox as soon as they post.
Sports columnist Luke DeCock joined The News & Observer in 2000 and has covered seven Final Fours, the Summer Olympics, the Super Bowl and the Carolina Hurricanes’ Stanley Cup. He is a past president of the U.S. Basketball Writers Association, was the 2020 winner of the National Headliner Award as the country’s top sports columnist and has twice been named North Carolina Sportswriter of the Year.
To one pair of eyes, watching from the owner’s box, this looked all too familiar. In his time with the Carolina Hurricanes, Eric Staal was part of any number of improbable playoff comebacks, usually but not always against the New Jersey Devils, the kind of games people still talk about five, 10, 20 years later.
He watched his younger brother this time, a civilian, alongside three sons too young to have witnessed what their father did in a Hurricanes uniform. But if they wanted to know, if they wanted to get a sense of the magic the Hurricanes have so often conjured in the spring, this was it.
“The momentum of the building. The sound. The energy,” Eric Staal said as he greeted former teammates in the locker room afterward. “Knowing that there was going to be a couple more chances, and if the vibes were right, they were going to go in. And they were today.”
The stuff of legend. The stuff of history. The stuff of nicknames.
Category 5.
Five unanswered goals. From three down to two up. Not only did the Hurricanes score with their goalie pulled, they scored after the New York Islanders pulled theirs.
Carolina’s Jack Drury (18), Jordan Staal (11) and Brent Burns (8) celebrate with Jordan Martinook (48) after Martinook scored to put the Canes up 4-3 during the third period of the Hurricanes’ 5-3 victory over the Islanders in the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs at PNC Arena in Raleigh, N.C., Monday, April 22, 2024. Ethan Hyman ehyman@newsobserver.com
There’s something deep in this franchise’s DNA, passed down from Jeff O’Neill to Rod Brind’Amour to Eric Staal to Brock McGinn to everyone on the roster now, that makes nights like this possible. That makes the impossible possible.
Down 3-2 with less than three minutes to go, Sebastian Aho scored with the Carolina net empty to tie the score. Then Jordan Martinook scored nine seconds later. Then Jake Guentzel scored into an empty net at the other end to ice a 5-3 win that left the Islanders picking fights and Patrick Roy shell-shocked on an increasingly empty bench. The Islanders had more misconducts (six) as the officials sorted through their shenanigans than they did shots on goal (one) in the third period.
This wasn’t a team sending a message at the end of a playoff game it lost. It was a shattered team lashing out in frustration after surrendering a three-goal lead, wilting in the face of a relentless attack that for so long failed to break through and then broke the Islanders entirely.
“It was a special night for sure,” Brind’Amour said. “It’s one of those games we’ll probably look back on for a long time.”
Carolina head coach Rod Brind’Amour talks to his team during a timeout late in the third period of the Hurricanes’ 5-3 victory over the Islanders in the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs at PNC Arena in Raleigh, N.C., Monday, April 22, 2024. Ethan Hyman ehyman@newsobserver.com
For the players who were a part of it, it’s too soon to appreciate just how stunning this was, just how memorable it will be. Time will take care of that. They know they were a part of something that will resonate far longer than the usual playoff game. Only later, when the adrenaline and euphoria fade, will they realize for just how long.
“I still have to kind of come down from it,” Martinook said. “I think you have to go home and take a deep breath and then maybe watch the highlights. Because when you’re in it, you’re in it. Your sole focus is on the game. There’s some crazy things happening.”
For 30 minutes, after falling behind, the Hurricanes pounded away at the Islanders’ net. They hit the posts on either side of Semyon Varlamov in the second period as Teuvo Teravainen got the Hurricanes on the board with a power-play goal. And they kept at it, shot after shot after shot, until Seth Jarvis beat Varlamov with a nasty wrister to pull the Hurricanes within a goal.
And immediately after Aho tipped in an Andrei Svechnikov shot, Martinook caught Varlamov sleeping and tucked the puck behind him from behind the net. Game, set, match. Series?
Carolina center Sebastian Aho (20) celebrates after scoring to tie the game 3-3 during the third period of the Hurricanes’ 5-3 victory over the Islanders in the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs at PNC Arena in Raleigh, N.C., Monday, April 22, 2024. Ethan Hyman ehyman@newsobserver.com
The Hurricanes weren’t thrilled with the way they played in Game 1, but were rewarded. They did everything right in Game 2 and weren’t rewarded for so long, until they were over and over again. The final tally of all shot attempts, on goal, blocked, missed? 110 to 28.
So this one goes into the history books, alongside the Miracle at Molson and the Shock at the Rock and all the other games that need no other description.
The Hurricanes have done this before, come back from three goals down: Game 4 in Montreal in 2002, Game 1 against the Edmonton Oilers in the 2006 Stanley Cup finals. Only seven teams have ever scored the game-tying and game-winning goals in the final three minutes of a playoff game. The Hurricanes have done it twice.
Lou Lamoriello watched Eric Staal eliminate his Devils in 2009 when he scored the second of two Hurricanes goals in the final 80 seconds of Game 7 to flip a series-ending loss into a series-ending win. He watched Monday as the Hurricanes all but eliminated his Islanders with three goals in the final 165 seconds of Game 2.
“We were even talking about that the other night, Eric’s goal against Jersey,” Jordan Staal said. “I watched it all. It’s fun to go do it tonight.”
In 2006, a year before he entered the NHL, Jordan Staal was then merely an interested spectator. Monday night, it was his brother’s turn to watch in return as a very different group of Hurricanes made a very similar kind of history.
Never miss a Luke DeCock column. Sign up at tinyurl.com/lukeslatest to have them delivered directly to your email inbox as soon as they post.
This story was originally published April 23, 2024, 12:04 AM.
Related stories from Raleigh News & Observer
Sports columnist Luke DeCock joined The News & Observer in 2000 and has covered seven Final Fours, the Summer Olympics, the Super Bowl and the Carolina Hurricanes’ Stanley Cup. He is a past president of the U.S. Basketball Writers Association, was the 2020 winner of the National Headliner Award as the country’s top sports columnist and has twice been named North Carolina Sportswriter of the Year.
