Carolina vs New York Rangers Prediction 16 May 2024

🔊Can Carolina accomplish the impossible and come back from a 0:3 series deficit? The Hurricanes are making history and have already secured two victories, trailing the series outright. It seems they have completely seized the initiative and are now returning home to stretch this series to seven games. The Rangers have failed to solve their problems in even-strength play and have stopped coping with the opponent's pressure. But Carolina is still on the brink, and every mistake could be their last.

Carolina hasn’t changed its tactics and continues to stick to its line: strong forechecking, numerous shots, high defensive line. The difference is that in the first three games of the series, all this didn’t yield results. Carolina's head coach Rod Brind'Amour brought back the team's main goaltender Frederik Andersen, and he provided the necessary “saves”. They also tuned their play in uneven squads and started scoring on the power play. Whether these changes are enough to save the series will be shown by this game.

The Rangers haven’t fundamentally changed their game but lost the majority, failing to capitalize on any numerical advantage over two matches. This proved fatal, as it was precisely this component of the game that led them to win three times in a row. Apparently, the field players believed too much that Igor Shesterkin would save them from any mistakes. In hockey at this level, that doesn’t happen. The Rangers can still close out the series with any victory, but it will now require a Herculean effort.

Projected Lineups
Carolina: Andersen – Burns, Slavin – Guentzel, Aho, Svechnikov

Rangers: Shesterkin – Lindgren, Fox – Kreider, Zibanejad, Roslovic

Carolina is missing Pesce and Fast, who have been out for a while and did not participate in this series. The visitors will be without Wheeler. There are no new injuries in the team. All key players of both teams will take to the ice.

Goalies
Carolina's goaltender Frederik Andersen (91.3%, 2.09 GAA) returned to the starting lineup and had a strong match. He virtually made no mistakes, kept his team in the game, and corrected the defenders' errors.

Rangers' goaltender Igor Shesterkin, even after two consecutive losses, remains the best in this playoff by all metrics, and most of the goals allowed are not his fault. The team stopped blocking the opponent's shots.

Editorial Prediction
Carolina has completely taken over the initiative in this series and is heading home to win. The tactic of numerous shots and tough pressing of the opponent across the rink has started to yield results. The Rangers, on the contrary, lost their power play game and lost a key advantage. In our opinion, Carolina will win this match.

📊Statistics are everything to us! And we are ready to provide them:

• officially, the clubs have played in 58;

• today's ice hosts have 19;

• the guests have – 36;

• the hosts struck the opponent's goal 136 times;

• the guests – 177 times.