OTTAWA -- The Carolina Hurricanes have no interest in letting the Ottawa Senators back into this series.
The opportunity to play another day, another game, fuels hope, and hope is currency in the postseason.
So, the Hurricanes have no plans to rest on their laurels, needing to win one of the next four games in this series to advance to the second round.
They want to snuff the torch of the Senators as soon as possible, preferably in Game 4 at Canadian Tire Centre on Saturday.
“It’s the same as any other day,” center Sebastian Aho said Friday. “This time of year, when it is go time, you don’t think about that stuff. You just put everything you got (on the ice), work your butt off and go from there.”
Carolina defenseman Sean Walker said the Senators will be looking to build on positives in Game 4. It’s Carolina’s job to limit those, just as it did in a 2-1 win in Game 3 here Thursday. The Senators rarely had life in a low-event game.
“You have to go into the game with the same mindset you have for the first three,” he said. “They are going to be desperate. Their backs are against the wall. We have to come and match the intensity, if not have our best game that we have had all series.”
Ottawa doesn’t have to look far for hope. Last season, they lost the first three games of their series against the Maple Leafs in the first round. They found a way to win the next two and put a scare into their provincial rival.
If they want to look further back, forward Claude Giroux made the journey from despair to delight in 2010 when his Philadelphia Flyers erased a 3-0 series deficit to the Boston Bruins in the second round and advanced to the Stanley Cup Final.
Four teams have done it in the history of best-of-7 series play in Stanley Cup Playoffs history.
“When we were in that position a long time ago, we just had a belief in the group that we could come back in a series," Giroux said. "You don’t think you are going to win the series, but you want to get back and give yourself a chance. The momentum changes. … For us it is Game 4 and that is all we are worried about.”
Extinguishing that belief is the Hurricanes’ task in Game 4.
“I said since before the series started, we all know what a great team they are,” Carolina coach Rod Brind’Amour said. “They have played hard every game and they are going to do the exact same. The only chance we have to be successful is if we play as hard as we can and do things right. Otherwise, it’s not going to go well.”
