Canadiens down 3-1 to Hurricanes after another no-show at home - ESPN

MONTREAL — The Canadiens have faced elimination in these playoffs before. But never with multiple games standing between them and the offseason.

That's where Montreal is now after a 4-0 loss to Carolina in Game 4 of the Eastern Conference finals Wednesday night that put the Canadiens in a 3-1 series deficit. Game 5 is Friday.

The Hurricanes put on a clinic, outshooting the Canadiens 43-18 — with a 95-45 edge in shot attempts — and carrying play from start to finish. Not even the Canadiens could explain their poor performance on home ice (now with a 2-6 postseason record there) knowing what was at stake if they fell behind — again — in a critical outing.

«It's pretty self-explanatory, I guess,» defenseman Lane Hutson said. «S--- game. I think this was our worst game at home.»

It's not as if the Canadiens haven't weathered adversity in the playoffs before; they went the distance in the first round against Tampa Bay and in the second against Buffalo. But they hadn't dropped consecutive games in either outing. Now, Montreal has lost three straight — a first since November — and there's nothing left to do but treat every matchup like a Game 7.

«It wasn't good enough, we didn't answer the bell,» Hutson said. «But we have another chance. We are a good enough team, a good enough group. We just have to dig deep.»

The Canadiens were out of sorts from the start. Carolina was easily outshooting them early on but faltered with a pair of offensive zone infractions against Jalen Chatfield and Taylor Hall. Montreal missed out on a masterful opportunity to capitalize on those errors — and when the Hurricanes got a second chance on their own man advantage, Sebastian Aho made the Canadiens pay with the game's opening marker.

It was the