The Hurricanes had the playoff series right where they wanted it. Then they didn’t

Jaccob Slavin was quickly surrounded by his teammates on the ice, almost as if he had won the game.

The Carolina Hurricanes defenseman had gotten off a shot from the bottom of the left circle Saturday, the puck grazing the near post as it sailed past Tampa Bay goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy. Slavin broke into a big smile. So did forwards Steven Lorentz and Cedric Paquette as they skated to him. Amalie Arena was quiet.

At that point in Game 4 of the playoff series, the Canes had scored their fourth goal of the second period for a 4-2 lead. That was four goals past Vasilevskiy, the former Vezina Trophy winner and a 2021 finalist who had given up five total in the first three games. That was against the Tampa Bay Lightning, the 2020 Stanley Cup champion.

“We were in a good spot,” Canes coach Rod Brind’Amour said.

The Canes were in position to collect a second straight road victory. It all seemed to be falling into place. Would they go back to Raleigh with a 2-2 tie in the series, pumped, feeling it, having regained the home-ice advantage?

No, the Canes would not. They couldn’t stay out of the penalty box, they suddenly couldn’t stop the Tampa Bay power play from scoring, they started making mental errors and it all began to unravel and fall apart, ending in a 6-4 loss that was hard for the Canes to stomach.

Slavin, an alternate captain, tried to say all the right things after the debacle, a wild game that started with the Canes’ Warren Foegele and Tampa Bay’s Blake Coleman both whistled for penalties — before the opening draw. Push, shove, whistle, two penalties.

The penalty on Foegele was not costly for the Canes. Others were.

“We took some bad penalties tonight, and if you give that caliber of power play that many chances it’s not a recipe for success,” Slavin said. “We’ve got to stay more disciplined and play hard but play smart, as well, and not give them chances they don’t need. Special teams got us tonight.”

As Canes forward Jesper Fast said, “We had the momentum and it went pretty quickly.”

It had to be a frustrating game for Brind’Amour. There were calls he disagreed with, and there were some he agreed with during the game.

One penalty he did not like came at 9:09 of the second. It came four minutes after Fast had followed up a Teuvo Teravainen goal with another for a 2-1 lead, and the Lightning quickly converted on a Steven Stamkos power-play score, his first goal of the game.

Nor was Brind’Amour happy after Andrei Svechnikov was called for roughing Yanni Gourde with 53 seconds left in second. Brind’Amour wasn’t so much hot about the Svechnikov call as having Tampa Bay defenseman Mikhail Sergachev cross-check Sebastian Aho in the back at the same spot along the boards, knocking Aho down but not being whistled.

Stamkos scored again on the power play and the Lightning had a 5-4 lead to end the second. When Tampa Bay turned a Jake Bean turnover into a Nikita Kucherov transition score six minutes into the third, it was 6-4 and the Canes were left discombobulated and unable to answer.

“In the second period we started to take over and we had the momentum and then we made it a little too hard on ourselves, taking too many penalties,” Fast said. “Five on five we’re playing good and doing a lot of good things. I really believe if we play our way and stay out of the box we’re going to turn this series around.”

The Canes will have an extra day to prepare for Game 5 on Tuesday, to mull over what needs to be done. Injured center Vincent Trocheck might be able to return, although that remains in question. The Canes have time to try and shake this loss out of their system and get mentally honed in for the next one.

But one thing the Canes must do to keep their season alive is beat the reigning Stanley Cup champions, a team with a healthy Kucherov, three straight times.

Do the Canes have that belief in their room?

“One hundred percent,” Fast said.