The Hurricanes Finally Did not Stink, But Tuukka Rask Made Sure That Did not Matter

Sometimes, it's just not your series. Sometimes, you just run into a buzzsaw-or perhaps a brick wall. The Carolina Hurricanes, now down to 3-0 to the Boston Bruins in the Eastern Conference final, may be particularly relevant to this, but it's really a Venn Diagram, and in the center is Tuukka Rask.

The Canes played two of their worst games of the season to open this series. Two total dog turds. Maybe it was nerves caused by Boston's dominating play and utter confidence, or just straight bad luck, or a more talented team would be less than 120 minutes, or all of these. Whatever it was, the Hurricanes desperately needed to play in Game 3. They did, at first.

Carolina opened with the best of all year. They swarmed like hornets and rained pucks on a goal like hellfire. They outskated, outmuscled, and outsmarted their Bruins counterparts throughout. They earned four power plays, including a 5-on-3 for 46 seconds. They had 12 shots on their power plays alone, seemingly all good, high-quality shots. They had 33 shots in the first, and 20 shots on net.

They had, depending on which metric you prefer, 2.49 or 2.75 expected goals in the first period.

They got zero actual goals.

"That's more of the way we wanted to play," Justin Williams said. "Obviously it just did not go in for us. It stinks. But it happens sometimes. "" It happens "is pointedly passive phrasing for what, exactly, did happen: Tuukka Rask stopped everything.

Of the insane four-shot sequence, Bruce Bruins coach Bruce Cassidy half-joked, "I had my eyes closed for three of them."

The Canes finally got to Rask in the second, but that point the Bruins had scored twice, and would not lose that lead. Rask had 35 saves on the night, and the win 2-1 gives Boston a 3-0 series lead that feels as insurmountable as these things get, even in the sport where 0-3 comebacks are slightly less impossible.

Rask has been dominant in this series, and easily the league's best goalie in the playoffs. Through 16 games-11 wins, and six wins in a row-he's sporting a .939 save percentage and is allowing under two goals per game. It's his best spring since the Bruins to the Cup six years ago, and Rask says all his postseason miles are paying off. "That's the experience. Once you've played in the playoffs for many, many years you can see the scenarios that can happen out there. "

So the Canes are still stymied by a problem they are running out of time to solve. And they do not appear any closer than they were last week. Justin Faulk was asked what makes Rask so tough to score on. "If I knew," he said, "I'd have a couple more goals on him."