Das Forum » The Carolina Hurricanes are bringing

RALEIGH Wade Megan Jersey Womens , N.C. (AP) —the Lambeau Leap to their hockey rink.Their post-victory parties have gone viral : After each win on home ice, they’ve skated en masse down the ice and jumped into the glass.Consider it the latest sign that this isn’t the same team that has missed the playoffs an NHL-worst nine straight years.“Instead of the standard, everybody goes to center ice and holds their stick up, we’re trying something new,” veteran winger Jordan Martinook said. “I think we had fun with it, and I think the fans liked it, so just keep an eye out on those. We might change it up, stick with that one, who knows?”They call it the “Storm Surge,” and they’ve already done it twice to rave reviews from the fans who stuck around after the final horn.It debuted following Carolina’s 8-5 victory over the New York Rangers on Sunday night. After the buzzer sounded, the team lined up along one blue line and clapped their hands over their heads while DJ Khaled’s “All I Do is Win” played over the arena’s sound system.Then they skated the length of the ice, with each player taking a playful leap into the boards as the fans cheered. Video of the celebration caught fire on social media seemingly as quickly as the players bounced off the Plexiglas.The encore came Tuesday night after beating Vancouver 5-3, but this time, as his teammates lined up Tobias Rieder Jersey Womens , Micheal Ferland skated to center ice and led the claps before everyone skated down the ice and jumped into the glass.“We looked at it, and they’re fine-tuning it,” first-year coach Rod Brind’Amour said, adding that Ferland “had a little issue with the beat. But again, that’s something that they’ve created, and hopefully they enjoy it and the fans enjoy it.”New captain Justin Williams was the one who came up with the idea, Martinook said.“Once he mentioned it, everyone was pretty excited and ready to run with it,” Martinook said.They know the celebration needs some fine tuning, and the best way to get it right it is by continuing to win — and to have a good reason to do it again.“I think we’ve got to get our tempo better and in sync,” rookie forward Warren Foegele deadpanned.So far during the young season, they certainly have been in sync on the ice.They’re only a week in, but they entered Wednesday night’s games with an Eastern Conference-best seven points.Their 3-0-1 record is the franchise’s best since it relocated from Hartford to North Carolina in 1997, and the last time they opened a season by earning points in four straight games was in 1994 — when they started 4-0-1 and were still known as the Whalers.During their current three-game winning streak Mike Hoffman Jersey Womens , they’ve outscored their opponents by a combined 16-9.For a team with a young core — key players Sebastian Aho, Martin Necas and Andrei Svechnikov were all born after the Whalers skated for the final time in Hartford — they’re determined to keep the focus on having fun and not on the pressure of trying to snap the NHL’s longest postseason drought.“It’s fun, right?” Foegele said. “High-scoring games, a bunch of young guys in here keeping it young, too. The group’s been good, and that’s what you want to see.” Gerard Gallant didn’t consider pulling Marc-Andre Fleury as another game and perhaps the Vegas Golden Knights‘ Stanley Cup hopes slipped away.The struggles and another pile of Washington Capitals goals are on the entire team. Gallant couldn’t pull all his players at once.”There was nothing that he could have done,” Gallant said.As the face of the franchise and its backbone on the ice, Fleury did just about everything to lead the expansion Golden Knights to the Cup Final with a .947 save percentage that made him the playoff MVP front-runner. In four games against Washington, Fleury has allowed 16 goals on 103 shots, a pedestrian .845 save percentage that speaks as much to Vegas crashing back down to earth as a team.There is plenty of blame to pass around for the Golden Knights as they face a 3-1 series deficit that no team since the 1942 Toronto Maple Leafs has overcome in the final. Vegas needs Fleury to be better and his teammates to improve in front of him in Game 5 on Thursday night or they will watch their opponent celebrate a championship their home ice.”When you’re a goalie you don’t want to get scored on,” Fleury said. ”There was a lot of that (in Game 4). It’s never a good feeling. It’s a team game. Everybody’s trying hard out there, trying to help me out. We’ll find a way to make it work.”It’s not working right now. The Capitals’ strategy of making lateral passes to get Fleury moving side-to-side is proving effective at even strength and on a power play that’s scoring at a 26.7 percent clip.Forward Alex Tuch said staying out of the penalty box is one necessary improvement, but it goes beyond that. Vegas has ridden Fleury to this point and now has to cut down on the high-danger scoring chances he’s facing and too often allowing to turn into goals.”Play better defensively,” Gallant said Tuesday. ”There’s too many guys staring at the puck carrier Peter Budaj Jersey Womens , and we’re leaving the back side open too much. Make sure we’re paying attention to the guys behind the puck and away from the puck. Marc will make the save on the guy shooting the puck. We’ve just got to make sure we’re taking away the passes.”Fleury didn’t make the save on Devante Smith-Pelly on the doorstep in Game 4 as the Golden Knights fell behind 3-0 despite one of their best periods of the series that featured James Neal’s inexplicable shot off the post facing a wide-open net. As Gallant pointed out, Fleury had little chance on others as Washington put up six goals in a blowout .Golden Knights players can’t help but feel like they’re letting ”Flower” down.”We have the best goalie in the league and he’s been carrying (us) the whole year along and we feel like the goals … there’s not much you can do on those,” center Pierre-Edouard Bellemare said. ”This is the frustrating part.”Fleury acknowledged falling behind 3-1 was demoralizing. But the 33-year-old refuses to say fatigue has been a factor for him or his teammates.”I think everybody’s fine,” Fleury said. ”It’s the same for their team, also. They’ve been through the same season, same playoffs. Being tired is no excuse.”The Golden Knights have lost three games in a row as they near the end of an otherwise-charmed inaugural season. Perhaps Fleury has one more stand-on-his head, stop-everything game left in him in front of the home fans in Las Vegas, but the Golden Knights will need more than a singular effort from their goalie.”Not where we want to be, that’s for sure,” Fleury said. ”Nobody’s quitting. We’re going home. We’ve had some success there. We just have to focus on period at a time, you know? Don’t think too far ahead. Just play our game, see where that takes us.”—More Stanley Cup coverage: https://apnews.com/tag/StanleyCupFinals—