The Carolina Hurricanes weren't ready for puck drop as the Boston Bruins pounced on them in a 4-1 loss Thursday night at PNC Arena.
The Bruins scored three goals in the opening 11 minutes off of some bad defensive breakdowns by the Canes.
Jake Guentzel scored the lone goal for Carolina on a 5-on-3 power play and Frederik Andersen stopped 24 shots in the loss.
After the game, Hurricanes coach Rod Brind'Amour along with Jesper Fast and Sebastian Aho spoke with the media. Here's what they had to say:
Rod Brind'Amour
On the game: We dug ourselves... the first couple of shifts were okay and then their best players got behind us. Give them all that open ice. And they were not going to give us too much after that.
On what led to the goals against: A couple things. They made good plays, give them credit, but I think we were sluggish to start. We weren't ready for that pace. I think that's kind of on me. Knowing the way we took these last four days was more mentally getting away and I think we weren't ready to get to it. After the first, it was probably a fairly even game, but the game was pretty much over. You can't give teams like that that kind of first 10 minutes.
On swapping up the pairings and lines: We just tried to move everything around to try and get some energy going. It didn't work really too well. But sometimes you have to try things. We're in a situation now where that's what we're kind of looking to do.
On Andrei Svechnikov's penalty: Can't do it. We've talked about it. He's got to figure it out.
On the success of special teams: Penalty kill was good. I don't know how many we killed, three or four, I don't know, but it gave us a chance. Kept us in there. [Andersen] made some good saves too. Kept us in there. Kind of unfortuante on the first one. Makes the save and then it gets kicked in. That's kind of how the night went from the start. But he was good. The rest of our game wasn't really great.
On Jack Drury trying to spark the team: His line was our best line. Should have played them more really. They were somewhat effective. They play hard, they do it right. It was a good game for their game.
On the defensive breakdowns leading to David Pasternak's goal: Little breakdown there and again, some players you can get away with that, not that guy.
Jesper Fast
On getting back into game action: Haven't played in a while, so it's good to be back out there. Of course, not the result you wanted for the team. Just got to reload and be ready for tomorrow.
On if the team was rusty after a long break: That's not really an excuse. The first period was not acceptable the way we played. Gave them too much time and space out there. We weren't ready and it hurt us. To go down 3-0 in the first period... the last two periods were kind of even but in the first period, they won the game.
On the difficulty to come back in this league: We know that good teams won't give us anything. Unfortunately we gave them a couple in the first period. It's hard to get back from that. Have to learn a little and get ready for tomorrow.
On building their game as it went along: We know we're a good team and when we play the right way, we're a really hard team to beat. Like we've showed this season, we're a really good team. So we just have to show that tomorrow.
On if there was a message in the locker room after the first period: No. Everyone knew that it wasn't acceptable the way we played. I think everyone knew that. We were on the same page on that one.
Sebastian Aho
On the start: I mean, for sure. It didn't give us the best chance to win. The first period, they were a lot better than us and obviously scored a few goals there. After that, it was a pretty even game I would say and we had our looks and all that, but we just have to be better from the start.
On if the long break affected the team: That would be just an excuse. You have to start on time. There's no excuses in this league. After their first goal, they used their momentum really well and it felt like maybe the first few shifts were pretty even. A lot of buzz going on back and forth, but they got their first goal and kind of took over that period from there. The first period, for sure, we have to be better.
On special teams: Those were big kills. Obviously it could have been 4 or 5-0 if we don't kill those. So they were huge. Obviously got a power play goal as well. So I mean, we had some looks like I said, but that's a really good hockey team and you can't expect to win if you give them a 3-0 lead. Having said that, we still had our looks to get back.
On being able to get right back at it tomorrow: Yeah. Need a good response.