Canes Clear Heads, Refocus for Biggest Game of the Year

"Nothing has come easy for this group, ever," head coach Rod Brind'Amour said after a tight 2-1 loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning in Game 1 of the Second Round.
On the eve of Game 5, the same remains true - and it's not going to get any easier from here.

Game 5 marks the first of three consecutive must-win games for the Canes should the Central Division champions look to advance to the Stanley Cup Semifinals. In order to do so, they'll have to overcome a 3-1 series deficit for the first time in franchise history (0-4) against a team that has never surrendered a 3-1 series lead in franchise history (11-0) - and they're the Stanley Cup champions, too.
But, why not? Why not the Canes? It's a team that's proven its resilience shift after shift, period after period, game after game. It's a team that relishes in being counted out. It's a team that faces adversity head on and works as a group to overcome.
"Everything they've gotten they've earned," Brind'Amour said after Game 1. "We're in the playoffs. We're going to have to go earn every inch of ice we get and every goal."
After dropping the first two games of the Second Round at home, the Canes bounced back with a
4-3 overtime win in Game 3 in Tampa
. A wild Game 4, which featured eight combined goals in the second period alone,
slipped away from the Canes in a 6-4 final
.
The Canes can't win three games in Game 5 alone, which feeds right into their mind space: One day at a time, one game at a time. Go 1-0, and win the day.
"We'd rather be up 3-1, obviously. It is what it is right now. We've just got to make sure we take it one game at a time," Dougie Hamilton said on Monday. "Our group doesn't quit. We're going to play well tomorrow."
Until now, the Canes' First and Second Round schedules had been played at an every-other-day cadence, but maybe the two-day gap in between Games 4 and 5 was the ideal reprieve for the Canes. Sunday was a day off, a mental and physical reset away from the rink.
"Especially with how that game went, the ebbs and flows and just how it ended up, it was nice to have a day to kind of get away from it," Brind'Amour said after practice on Monday.
It was back to work on Monday, as the Canes tidied up on some of the finer details of their game, both at 5-on-5 and on specialty teams, before Tuesday's 6:30 p.m. puck drop, the "biggest game of the year," as Brind'Amour called it.
"We just tried to learn from our mistakes in that game and not think about it anymore," Martin Necas said on Monday. "Keep improving, have a good practice today and be ready for tomorrow."
The Canes' lineup might get an injection of skill and goal-scoring ability. Nino Niederreiter, who has missed the first four games of this series with an upper-body injury, returned to practice on Monday and skated on a line with Necas and Jordan Martinook.
The Canes are "hopeful" that Niederreiter will be able to play in Game 5, Brind'Amour said, a status dependent on how the winger felt after his first skate with the team in more than a week.
"We miss him, you know? He's a big part of our team," Necas said. "I'm excited to play with him."
Neither Vincent Trocheck, who has missed the last two games with a lower-body injury, nor Warren Foegele, who played in Game 4 after suffering an upper-body injury two nights prior, practiced with the Canes on Monday, but both skated with the extras earlier in the morning. Both remain game-time decisions heading into Game 5.
Nothing has ever come easy for this group, indeed, and now is the time to earn it - and prove it.
It ain't over 'til it's over, and it's certainly not over yet, despite what the odds might say. It begins with going 1-0 on Tuesday.
"You know there is no tomorrow. This is it. You've got to lay it all on the line," Brind'Amour said. "I'm sure we'll give it everything we've got. I've got no doubt in this group."
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