The Carolina Hurricanes only lost by two to the Boston Bruins on Saturday, but their head coach thought it could’ve been much, much worse.
He literally admitted as much.
The Bruins took a 2-1 lead in the best-of-seven first-round Stanley Cup Playoffs series with a 3-1 victory in Game 3. And while Boston peppered Carolina netminder Petr Mrazek with shots all afternoon, 39 to be exact, the game never really got lopsided.
Charlie Coyle scored on the power play just 14 seconds into the second period, and it wasn’t until 1:16 in the third that Sean Kuraly doubled the Bruins’ advantage. Even then, it was just over five minutes later that Nino Niederreiter scored the Hurricanes’ first and only goal to cut the deficit back to one. Brad Marchand’s empty-netter with 31 seconds left sealed the win for Boston.
Asked to give an assessment of the performance, Hurricanes head coach Rod Brind’Amour was candid, especially with his final remark.
“Well we had a good start, the first period was fine, I thought we deserved better,” Brind’Amour said. “We had a couple good looks and post and the real close to being in if not in but you can’t see it go in, so it was right there for us. And then we just let off the gas a little, and that team’s too good. If you give them an inch they’re taking a mile. And then they got their game going and we just never got to our game the rest of the game.
“It was a miracle that we were actually still in it by a goal toward the end.”
The Hurricanes and Bruins will meet for a pivotal Game 4 on Monday at 8 p.m. ET. The number of miracles needed on both sides is to be determined.
