Despite the end of the playoff winning streak, confidence is high

On Saturday, the New York Rangers bad start in Game 4 against the Carolina Hurricanes ultimately ended in a 4-3 loss. Despite clawing their way back to even in the third period, they allowed the Hurricanes to finally score a power-play goal with 3:11 remaining. Carolina then held on for its first win in this Eastern Conference Second Round series.

We dug ourselves a hole early,” coach Peter Laviolette said afterwards. “I don’t think it was because we weren’t ready to play… but the [chances] we gave up were pretty noisy. We’ve got to come out a little sharper than that. We were competing and working, doing our job offensively. But there’s some things we could do better defensively.”

One way to look at failing to sweep the Hurricanes is that the Blueshirts played their worst game in this series, and only lost by Brady Skjei’s late power-play goal. As the Rangers pressed to break the tie, Carolina was able to catch Ryan Lindgren a step behind, forcing him to take down Jordan Martinook on an odd-man rush.

C’est la vie.

Now, the Rangers will truly show if they are built for the Stanley Cup Playoffs. How they respond after their first postseason loss should be a great indication of what to expect going forward as each round and opponent will only get tougher.