The Canes beat the Bolts 2-1 in overtime Friday night at Lenovo Center.
The Carolina Hurricanes got some overtime magic from Shayne Gostisbehere to close out their pre-season home schedule with a 2-1 win Friday night at Lenovo Center.
Jesperi Kotkaniemi scored the other goal for Carolina and Pyotr Kochetkov stopped 16 of 17 shots in the win.
After the game, Hurricanes coach Rod Brind'Amour along with Gostisbehere and Scott Morrow spoke with the media. Here's what they had to say:
Rod Brind'Amour
On the game: You could see that we needed to play. Those guys were off for a week and it was a little off. It was good at times. Some lines you could tell what they were doing, others it was a little loosey goosey, but that's this time of year.
On Scott Morrow: I thought he was good. He was noticeable in a positive way. Which especially because he hadn't played yet and had been out for a little bit. So it was definitely a good game for him.
On Jackson Blake: He's trying. Every second, he's trying. But I think there's way more positives. You see that. He's done a real good job.
On if he foresees either young kid playing on the back-to-back: Maybe. We've gotta make sure everybody's good and then decide how that's all going to shake out. Morrow probably more than likely just because he hasn't played, but Blake's already played four [games]. So we'll see.
On Pyotr Kochetkov: He was really good tonight. Made some real big saves, especially at key times. We had a couple of bad plays and he bailed the boys out which is what you need.
On the pre-season almost being over: Almost. Tomorrow's going to be a tough one. But again, we can all agree that the days of pre-season have changed just because the nature of the way the guys come to camp. I think we'll all be looking forward to when this is all behind us.
On if he likes having the chance to work on the power play a lot during the pre-season: Yeah, it's good. It gives us good video and stuff to go over. It's interesting, the power play, because you kind of don't want to show everything so you're not really making too many adjustments because you know we're going to have to play them again. So it's like, 'Geez do you really want to do this,' but also, there's certain things that you have to do and we didn't execute as well as we needed to there. That's why we didn't score.
On if there's tough roster decisions ahead: Yeah, no doubt about it. In this day and age, everybody already knows who's on the team because contracts are what they are, but there's always room for guys that earn their spot. We'll definitely have a lot of discussions.
On Jesperi Kotkaniemi producing: You have to. If you're on the power play and you're playing with the top wingers on your team, then you have to contribute in that way or it's probably not going to work. It was good to see him get that one.
Shayne Gostisbehere
On the game: I don't think we had our best as a team. Everyone else will probably say that, but it's good to work on these things now. We did some little things good, we did some easier things bad that we probably should have done good, but it's obviously good to win one and keep it going.
On how it feels being back playing the Carolina Hurricanes system: It's been awesome. It's a great system to play in. It's cut and dry. It's a simple system in the sense that you do your job and follow your guy. It's a little more skating, for sure, but it keeps you in better shape.
On playing with Sean Walker: I love it. We're two dynamic players in the sense that we like to get up in the rush and make plays. It's a dream system for us because we're always skating. I think our defense is the way we skate. Eliminating time and space, it's a big thing out there and that's what our system does. It's a stress game and I think me and Walks play it to a tee.
On getting the extra power play time to work on things: I don't mind the power plays. I wish we could get a couple but it's a good bounce. We got a lot of PK in today, a lot of power play, a lot of 5v5 and some overtime. It's good to do it out there. One thing to do it in practice, but to do it in a game setting is pretty nice.
On being nearly done pre-season: Super excited. As us older guys would say, just want to get on with it and get to the regular season. But you know, these games are important. We gotta find our legs. It's hard to just jump into game speed. A couple of pre-season games helps out.
On Scott Morrow: I practiced for the first time with him the other day. He's a good, young player and you can see that he has a skillset and his skating ability is second to none. And you know he's got some puck play too. It was a treat to watch him.
Scott Morrow
On getting back into game action: It sucked not being on the ice, but I had my legs tonight and hopefully I made a good impression. It was just fun being back playing a game.
On how well he adapted: The biggest thing is just knowing I can play with these guys and play confident. I spent most of my summer here and been around these guys, skated with them almost every day so I'm used to training with them and stuff so it was an easy transition getting out here and they made it easy for me too, especially [Dmitry Orlov].
On playing with Dmitry Orlov: Orly's an incredibly smart player. I don't know if I've ever had a D-partner in the three games I've played with him that's given me more D-to-D passes in the offensive zone which everybody likes. So it was really cool to get to play with him.
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