Hurricanes beat Rangers thanks to Ian Cole’s special moment. Here’s how it happened

How does it feel to score an overtime winner in the Stanley Cup playoffs?

“Claustrophobic,” Ian Cole said Wednesday with a slight smile.

It was Cole who turned and stepped into a shot early in overtime that made the Carolina Hurricanes jubilant winners and the New York Rangers stunned losers. The veteran defenseman does not score a lot of goals and few would have picked him to be the sudden hero this night, but a hero he was in the 2-1 victory in Game 1 of the second-round series at PNC Arena.

Cole. And Antti Raanta. And Sebastian Aho. Each was named one of the three stars of the game.

It was Raanta who kept the Canes in the game as they sloshed their way through the first two periods, the goalie making timely saves after allowing the Rangers a goal seven minutes into the game.

“He’s really good at recognizing that momentum and making those huge saves when you need them,” Cole said. “He gave us a chance to get back.”

It was Aho who tied the score 1-1 with 2:23 left in regulation, sweeping in front of the net to finally get a puck past Rangers goalie Igor Shesterkin. That came after both Nino Niederreiter and Aho had hit the crossbar with shots earlier in third, Niederreiter on a breakaway.

Raanta, after the game, said he sensed the game would end quickly in overtime, that neither team was holding back or playing it cautiously. And Cole did end it quickly, at 3:12 of overtime.

“That’s what’s great about this game. You just don’t know who’s going to be the guy,” Canes coach Rod Brind’Amour said. “Now he’s got that moment forever. That’s what makes it special.”

After Shesterkin blocked a shot by defenseman Brendan Smith, Cole collected the loose puck in the right circle, looked for someone to pass to, saw no one, so turned and shot. And scored, the puck clipping the stick of defenseman Ryan Lindgren and getting past Shesterkin.

“Hockey is a game of weird bounces and it happened to go in,” Cole said.

Suddenly, he had teammates flying at him for a group hug.

“It was great having all your boys jump on you,” Cole said. “Visor got a little fogged up and the hair got in my face and I couldn’t see anything. Probably the only time I like that.”

Cole is usually the guy rushing to jump on someone else after an overtime winner, but didn’t mind being in the middle of the mob scene.

“Correct,” he said, laughing. “Certainly a role reversal, for sure.”

It was Cole’s second career playoff goal but not, he said, the biggest. He won two Stanley Cups with the Pittsburgh Penguins, and his first playoff goal came in the Stanley Cup final.

It was his Stanley Cup pedigree that made the Canes covet him in free agency and sign him in the offseason. Yes, they were adding defensive depth, but Cole had the wisdom and experience that came with playing more than 600 regular-season and almost 100 career playoff games.

A cool head was needed Wednesday. The Rangers were the better team for the first two periods, quicker to the puck and better with it. The Canes seemed stuck in second gear while the Rangers were humming along.

That all changed in the third period when Cole said, “We came out with a lot of desperation and the right mindset.”

The Canes’ forecheck was better in the third. The PNC Arena crowd was alive, urging the home team on. The Canes kept at it, tied the score.

“We raised the level of our game, the intensity,” Brind’Amour said. “That got us back in the game and then obviously it carried over in overtime. I like the fact we just kept coming.”

And Cole produced the overtime winner.

“It’s great,” Cole said. “It’s not necessarily about this game but building toward that journey going forward. I mean, we’re not here to win one game in the second round and say, ‘Well, that’s it, mission accomplished.’ We’re here to win a Stanley Cup.

“This was a great step forward and I think it showed our resiliency as a team and our ability to kind of check ourselves and fix our game during the game. Not wait ‘til after the game and watch video and make that adjustment. We can do it on the fly, which is the mark of a great team, a very well-coached team. That was a great step forward for us.”