Hurricanes must solve Bobrovsky, Panthers to avoid elimination in Game 4

SUNRISE, Fla. --Carolina Hurricanes coach Rod Brind'Amour returned to his cell phone after a 1-0 loss to the Florida Panthers in Game 3 of the Eastern Conference Final on Monday. It was "blowing up" with messages from friends and supporters with advice and encouraging words.

But there is no magic formula to pull off the monumental task Carolina faces trailing 3-0 in the best-of-7 series heading into Game 4 at FLA Live Arena on Wednesday (8 p.m. ET; TNT, CBC, SN, TVAS).

"We've been around this long enough," Brind'Amour said Tuesday. "You can talk to anybody you want. Everybody's going to give you the exact same answer. Everybody that you know that's on your side has got every motivational (tool) they got every time this happened. 'Keep doing what you're doing.' I get it, but that's what it is.

"I'm not going to make more of it than it is. We have to win a game."

If the Hurricanes can win once, they would still have to defeat the Panthers three more times, which is a tall order especially considering they've scored a total of three goals against goalie Sergei Bobrovsky through 14 periods of play, including a 3-2 loss in quadruple overtime in Game 1 and a 2-1 overtime loss in Game 2.

RELATED: [Complete Hurricanes vs. Panthers series coverage]

Teams that take a 3-0 lead in a best-of-7 series are 200-4 (.980), including 46-0 (1.000) in the round before the Stanley Cup Final.

"We've got a lot of work ahead of us," Hurricanes defenseman Jaccob Slavin said. "There's no beating around the bush there, but we've got a lot of belief in our locker room, and we've just got to break through. … It's going to be a lot of work, but it's work we're looking forward to."

After some frustration boiled over Monday, the Hurricanes' mood improved Tuesday after a night of sleep to digest their latest fruitless effort against Bobrovsky, who made 32 saves Monday and has stopped 132 of 135 shots in the series.

Like the first two games, Carolina controlled play for long stretches, outshooting the Panthers 25-7 during the last two periods and having a 50-20 advantage in shot attempts.

It could not break through against Bobrovsky, who made Sam Reinhart's second period power-play goal stand up as the game-winner.

"He's playing unbelievable right now," Hurricanes forward Seth Jarvis said. "You have to tip your cap. ... As a forward group, we have to get more bodies in front of him. That makes it tougher for any goalie on the planet, is when there's traffic. It can hit a shinpad or lay there for a rebound, so we just need to do a better job of really digging in as a forward group and getting bodies in front of him."

Aside from that, Brind'Amour doesn't see a need to change much.

"It's tough to find fault in our game right now," he said. "That's really what it's at, but we do have to find a way to get a puck in the net. If we were getting 15 shots, I'd be saying we've got to do a lot more, but that's really not the case. You've got to give credit where credit's due and that guy is playing really well. We've had a lot of really good chances and we've just got to try to create more."

The Hurricanes hope to find a way to push enough goals past Bobrovsky on Wednesday to force a Game 5 on home ice Friday. Then they'd have to do it again, but maybe would get some momentum and confidence from having done it once.

"I think you get one and then we go back home, and we know what we can do in our building," forward Jordan Martinook said. "Obviously we didn't do it the first two games, but that building gives us a lot of juice. So if we get the one here the next game, that's our sole focus is to get that game and I think if we come out with the same effort we did [Monday], then we're going to give ourselves a great chance at it.

"Every guy in this room, I know what kind of character everybody has and we're going to come out guns blazing on Wednesday."