WASHINGTON — The Carolina Hurricanes knew that their first-round series would be returning to Raleigh on Monday. They hoped that they would be doing so with a 3-2 series lead and a chance to close out the series on home ice.
They won’t get that chance.
The Washington Capitals took advantage of lackadaisical Hurricanes play essentially from the opening faceoff and parlayed that into a 5-0 win that, from a Hurricanes perspective, was way easier than it had any business being. Nicklas Backstrom scored the first two goals, the second game in this series that he’s scored twice, and the series continued its strange storyline of the team scoring the opening goal in each game — in all five cases, the home team — never giving up the lead.