The Canes lost 4-3 to the St. Louis Blues Saturday night.
The Carolina Hurricanes were just a bit too loose Saturday night as they lost 4-3 to the St. Louis Blues.
The Canes, who were playing in the second half of a back-to-back, took an early lead and found a late equalizer, but the team was just not sharp enough for 60 minutes.
After the game, Hurricanes coach Rod Brind'Amour along with captain Jordan Staal and Gostisbehere spoke with the media. Here's what they had to say:
Rod Brind'Amour
On the game: We played a great first period and a great third, we just had a couple... the penalties kind of took us out of our game and gave them their legs and then they scored on their chances. That's pretty much what happened tonight, unfortunately. Came back in the third really well and then took a little breather, turned the puck over in the neutral zone and then they scored on their chance. That's basically what happened.
On Pyotr Kochetkov: You can't fault him on the goals, but hopefully, you want to try to get one of those just to keep us in the game especially after we came back. But can't give up a breakaway there right after we kind of get back into the game. That's the game.
On Shayne Gostisbehere: He's got a great shot from the blueline there and he's finding ways to get it through. Hopefully that continues.
On regrouping: These are the tough losses because you probably deserved better. You played pretty well and then it just... it is what it is. You're going to have to move on and we'll pick up the pieces tomorrow and get a good practice in and get ready for the next one. In general, you have to like what we did tonight. I don't know what the chances ended up being but I'm sure it was pretty lopsided. Certainly felt that way. We were doing a lot of good things, but like I said, a couple of things didn't go our way and we weren't able to score. Had a couple good chances, right at the end we had one. Did all we could.
On if there's any lingering injury concerns with Andrei Svechnikov or Brent Burns: I don't know yet. Obviously I'm hoping that they'll be fine. They finished the game so that's good, but it's always the next day that these things seem to catch up to you. We battled. All these guys are exhausted. They gave everything they had, we just had a couple of mental lapses that ended up in the back of our net.
Jordan Staal
On the game: The third period was good. We were battling hard, but they made us pay on a couple of quick mistakes and it was in the back of our net. We can't make those mistakes and that's pretty much the end of the game. We have to get more goals. This league, it's hard to get goals and that was kind of the end of the game there.
On the new guys stepping up: Great players. Obviously they know how to put the puck into the back of the net and we need that. [Gostisbehere] has been dynamite on the power play. You can tell by the way it moves. He changes the whole dynamic and [Roslovic] has an absolute ripper. A couple of big goals for us. Goals are good but wins are better and we have to find a way to keep them out of the back of our net.
On the grit of the group: Burnsie's eating pucks there on the PK. I thought the PK was good. We were slipping on a few plays, but all in all we were grinding and had some big kills. Our special teams should have won us that game if we were good at 5-on-5 which we weren't. Some mistakes, but the boys grinded for sure.
Shayne Gostisbehere
On the game turning in the second period: I took two bad ones tonight. Can't really do that. It lets their best players touch the puck and get a feeling for it. We dominated on the first and it was pretty evident and then we came out and I personally took two stupid penalties and it got their top guys going. If they feel the puck, they're going to start making their plays and getting their confidence for the game. You kind of saw it leading to the second. We had little lapses here and there and took a couple of shifts off and we were chasing the game after that.
On his scoring streak: It's a work in progress. Different teams kill differently. Roddy's been giving us a good blueprint to what works against that so for us to obviously get some positives out of it, making plays and getting some results helps too.
On the keys to moving forward: That was our first real test of the season. Playing a back-to-back and coming to a tough barn against a team that's been playing pretty well to start the season. We're going to the gauntlet pretty much. The western Canada road trip is pretty tough and we have to get our stuff together and we'll be there.