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Hurricanes find new ways to win, by the finest of margins, and now lead Rangers, 2-0

That’s six in a row at home now, a new record for the Carolina Hurricanes. What’s even more notable than making history for a franchise that’s gone far deeper in the playoffs than this team has so far, is how they’ve done it.

There’s no one way to win a playoff game, and there’s no one way the Hurricanes have won them. They just flat-out outscored the Boston Bruins in three of their four wins in that series, fought off a late onslaught to win Game 7, surged back to win the first game of this series in overtime and, Friday, clung desperately to a shutout late as the New York Rangers pushed for a win.

It took Sebastian Aho’s empty-netter with 1.8 seconds to go to put a bow on this 2-0 win, and 2-0 lead in this second-round series, the third straight for the Hurricanes by the finest of margins.

That was a new one.

In a game that was scoreless for 34 minutes and a narrow one-goal game for 25, the Hurricanes made almost no errors on a night when there was almost no margin for error. It’s one of those odd scenarios where the Rangers will head back to New York facing a 2-0 deficit despite feeling pretty good about how they’ve played, which says more about the Hurricanes than it does the Rangers.

You can say that it’s just what the Hurricanes have done all year — attack, ablate, adapt — but to show this kind of versatility in the postseason, with these stakes and under this kind of pressure, is a different animal altogether.

Getting solid goaltending helps, of course, and Antti Raanta has done that and more — from his first postseason start to his first postseason shutout in a matter of 18 days. But there’s a flexibility to the Hurricanes’ game and approach that has served them well, more in this postseason than in the three that preceded it.

Now, the question is whether they can take that show on the road.

Because even though they’re up 2-0 in this series, they also have yet to win a road game in these playoffs. They sunk themselves in two of the losses in Boston with penalties; their own power play failed to convert in the third.

This isn’t a different team than the one that kept going up there and losing, but it’s one that has won three critical games since then, all by the finest of margins, and while they may have been at home, they were all won with the kind of approach that wins road games in the postseason.

Friday was especially that kind of game. Brendan Smith’s short-handed goal late in the second period cracked open a tight, scoreless game, and the Hurricanes hunkered down as the Rangers poured it on in the third. But even as they did, there was very little open ice for Artemi Panarin or Mika Zibanejad or any of the Rangers’ best players. And when there was, Raanta was up to task.

“You’ve got to tip your hat to them because they kept coming in waves,” Smith said. “We took their time and space. That’s really the biggest thing. There were a lot of areas where ‘Breadman’ (Panarin) kind of turns up and tries to create space, but if you turn with him, try to take that space away from him, he can’t make those elite plays. He still does. That’s what players like him do. But if you can take it away and stay close to them, you can get your stick on maybe a pass or a shot. I saw a lot of guys doing that.”

It was a textbook defensive performance, one of the Hurricanes’ best, not just of the postseason but of the season — and the opposite of the no-holds-barred offensive swarm that finally found a way past Igor Shesterkin in the final four minutes of regulation Wednesday.

The Hurricanes hope this is merely the beginning of a long playoff run. There will be new challenges ahead, and Sunday in Madison Square Garden will be another. They’ll have to find still more new ways to win, but they’ve found enough so far.

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