The Carolina Hurricanes defeated the Minnesota Wild 3-2 Tuesday night at Xcel Energy Center.
Jordan Staal, Andrei Svechnikov and Stefan Noesen each scored for Carolina while Pyotr Kochetkov stopped 28 of 30 in the win.
After the game, Hurricanes coach Rod Brind'Amour along with Jaccob Slavin and Svechnikov spoke with the media. Here's what they had to say:
Rod Brind'Amour
On his takeaways: It certainly wasn't a pretty game. We started out really well and then we got a penalty there in the first period and it kind of got them going. Then it was just a struggle to get our game going. But I give the guys credit. We battled and found a way.
On Jaccob Slavin: You can't say enough good things. I think we don't talk about him enough, but he's such a huge part of what we're doing back there. So it doesn't surprise me that he's putting up all these stats. You don't really judge him by his stats though. His overall impact to the group is far, far greater than that.
On generating offense: The first period we were doing a good job with it and we blocked a ton of our own shots, but that's a good sign. It means you're around the net. And then we were able to get one off the faceoff by being at the net. That was good and then we kind of went away from it a little bit and they did a good job of getting to their game better than we did, but [Kochetkov] buckled down and made some big saves. Especially on the penalty kill.
On getting some bounces: We needed to get some of those. We hadn't gotten any in forever so that was nice to see. They all eventually kind of even out supposedly, so I still think we're due a few more of those, but we'll take it.
On the dominance on faceoffs: That's key. That's the difference, right? If we don't win the draw, we're not getting possession time. I don't know if it counted as a power play goal or not, but it certainly should because the guy was just coming out, but it was because of Noesen winning it. So that's a big deal in the game when it's that tight.
Andrei Svechnikov
On his goal: I got the puck in the neutral zone and I saw [Staal] was on the left side so I tried to bump it to the wall and hope he was going to get the puck. Obviously then he and [Jarvis] made a nice play so I tried to shoot in the net and it was nice.
On the shot: I kind of missed it or something happened. I have to rewatch it, but I definitely missed it a little bit and it kind of got through the five-hole.
On the win: It's huge, especially since we've had a couple of losses here. It was a huge win for us. Not the easiest one, probably one of the hardest. A close score. We've got to move on, stay positive and hopefully win the next game.
On the team's work ethic: Big. That's what we have to do every game. Just stay focused because it's not easy. It's hard. But just staying focused because we know how to play.
On Pyotr Kochetkov: Unbelievable. You just watch him and I feel like he's grown every week. He gets more experience, feels very confident and he's very calm. That's what I like to see. He's very calm right now and just focusing on every game and every moment that he has and he just tries to use the opportunity.
On the team's goaltending: Big confidence. Lately, our goalies have been huge, but obviously we have to help them out and hopefully we'll do that.
Jaccob Slavin
On his takeaways: Compete is something our team always does night in and night out. It might not always be the smartest way that we work hard, but sometimes work ethic gets it done. But we can definitely be smarter in the hard work that we do.
On tying the franchise record for points by a defenseman: Just tied it, haven't beat it yet, so I still got some work to do there, but no, no,. I'm grateful. Extremely blessed to be able to play this many years in the league. God's been good to me and all the glory goes to him, but it's been fun. Hopefully there's a lot more to come and a lot more games to come, but it's just another fun part of the journey and to be able to do it with the guys in the locker room and the guys that I've played with for a long time is special.
On how important a win like this can be: It's huge. It wasn't the prettiest, but we got it done and two points is huge at this time of the year. So we'll take it and just continue to get better.
On having a push back effort: It's huge. Obviously, any time you go down and you're able to battle back, it's good and a confidence booster. You know that you can do it and you can come back from behind and squeak out two points. It's good for the team, good for our confidence, but we can better about it too.
On slowing down Minnesota's top line: We have a good d-corp back here and [Staal's] line matching up against them all night. They do a great job every night shutting down other team's top lines and Skjei and Pesce did a great job against them pretty much all night long. We have a d-corp that can skate and move really well and we play an aggressive style back there. So getting in their face a little bit and not giving them any time to make the plays that they're capable of making. When you give them time it ends up not good for us. It was a good team effort from that standpoint tonight.