’Canes try to keep home edge

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — This looks familiar to Carolina: The Hurricanes bouncing back from a lopsided Game 1 loss to wrest home-ice advantage from a higher-seeded opponent in Game 2.

This time, they’d like to keep it.

The Hurricanes gave back a home-ice edge in their last series before rallying to advance to Round 2. Now they’re hoping to do a better job of protecting their arena Wednesday night when their best-of-seven Eastern Conference semifinal series with Boston shifts to Raleigh for Game 3.

“You have to learn and you have to build your confidence. When you’re a confident team, you’re more resolved,” Carolina coach Paul Maurice said Monday, less than 24 hours after his team evened its series with the Bruins at one game apiece with a 3-0 win.

“When you think you can win, you’ll stay in the fight longer,” he added. “Having that win to tie the series and get home-ice advantage is real important, but to keep that resolve, to keep the players believing” is even more important.

Both of the Hurricanes’ playoff series started in similar fashion. Carolina began both on the road and wound up losing the openers by 4-1 scores in games that weren’t really that close. But in both series the Hurricanes rebounded by winning the second game and swinging home-ice advantage.

“You want to get two here [in Boston], but we’ll take the split. We’ll go back to our building, and hopefully we’ll come out with the same fire and intensity,” center Eric Staal said.

In its last series, Carolina returned home and handed that advantage right back to the Devils with an overtime loss in Game 3.

“We’re going to prepare in a lot of ways the exact same way we always do, and hopefully with a little more knowledge on how we’re going to compete in Game 3s,” said Maurice.