From Talking Points: 

Oddly enough, while the crowd has been in full voice for both home games, it hasn’t been at full capacity.

The Canes didn’t come close enough to a sellout in Game 3 even to claim one, drawing only 17,971, with the all-too-frequent empty seats in Section 107 and a wide expanse of unoccupied black leather in the Champions Club.

There seemed to be more people in the building Tuesday, and they had quite a bit more to cheer about, but it still wasn’t a sellout. In fact, it was the third-lowest playoff attendance in RBC Center history — 17,465.

Read more here. 

The Carolina Hurricanes’ fans have shown up for both home playoff games ready to offer the team whatever energy it needs. Tuesday, the Canes finally fed off that support.

After an early elbow to Tuomo Ruutu’s head by Dainius Zubrus, the Canes threatened to score (but didn’t) on the power play. They spent the rest of the period pounding Zubrus into the boards in retribution before Eric Staal gave the Canes their first 1-0 lead of the series.