The Carolina Hurricanes staved off elimination Monday night, defeating the Florida Panthers 3-0 in Game 4 of the Eastern Conference Final at Amerant Bank Arena.
The Canes tightened up defensively and cleaned up the self-inflicted wounds, riding a Logan Stankoven game-winner all the way to the end.
After the game, Hurricanes coach Rod Brind'Amour, along with Stankoven, Sebastian Aho, Frederik Andersen, Jordan Staal and Jaccob Slavin spoke with the media in Florida. Here's what they had to say:
Carolina Hurricanes Stave Off Elimination, Blank Florida Panthers In Game 4
The Carolina Hurricanes are still alive!
Rod Brind'Amour
On the rookies stepping up: In the moment and obviously with the team your playing, they just aren't looking like rookies. Stankers had a little more experience, been through this a little bit, but Nikihsin, that's been pretty impressive, especially with the minutes we're kind of getting forced to play him. Both of those guys were excellent tonight.
On if he has any regrets about not going to Nikishin earlier in the series: Well, if he played like that, than yeah, for sure. We went to him and it was a rough first outing. But obviously he's seizing the moment right now.
On not having to talk about the ECF winless streak anymore: That's nice. It means nothing to those guys because half of them weren't here, but it's been a story so, yeah it's nice to not have to talk about that.
On when he felt like they were truly playing Hurricanes hockey: Right from the start. It was how we need to play if we're gonna have a chance. We gave ourselves a chance and that's all you can ask. Everything was solid tonight. Goalie was great when he needed to be, obviously the penalty kill was phenomenal. But that was obviously more like it.
On Alexander Nikishin: I just like that he's not rattled and going out there and playing. Sometimes these young kids come over and come in, even rookies, they don't realize the moment and how big it is. They're just playing hockey. Sometimes it takes a couple years to realize, 'Oh this is pretty important,' you know? He looks like he's unfazed. I don't know. I can't really tell you, but he's doing a great job for us.
On Frederik Andersen: He looked confident, but he always does. He's not a goalie who's throwing himself around. He's always in control. But there were some real tough shots that looked easy tonight and that's when you know he's kind of on. We talk all the time about how important that position is, but it seems like in this series, you get those saves early and you can keep playing your game and that's what happened here tonight.
On the team's physicality: I didn't think the game was overly physical that way, but it has been obviously. We've had some big hits, they've had some big hits. It's part of it. We understand that and I thought we answered everything we needed to tonight in that regard, now we have to figure out a way to back it up.
On Logan Stankoven: He's been great. We've talked about him enough. There's another kid I think is just getting going in his career obviously, but there's another level he can get to. Again, real fortunate to have these young kids in the organization.
On the task at hand: We're not going [to get comfortable], but it is nice to I think enjoy it for a little bit. I think there's been a lot of crap thrown on this team. I think we can enjoy the game for a little bit. And we know that they're not going away. This is not even a blip on the radar for them, but we have to keep the gas down or the hammer down and give ourselves a chance again in the next game.
On the penalty kill pulling through even without Jalen Chatfield and Sean Walker: It's pretty amazing really because those guys are such good killers, Chatty especially is always on it. I just think there's a level of desperation there on the kill. A lot of it is all of a sudden there's a breakdown and guys are flying in there and trying to get in the way. Which is what you have to do. We had some saves too. All that contributed to it.
Logan Stankoven
On if he was calling for the puck on his goal: I did, but I think the play happened so fast and it was a great feed by him to make that play off of the turnover. It all starts with him. Great, great feed by him.
On the lessons he learned from last year's run with Dallas: I think just being patient. The goals and points may not come right away, but you have to stay patient as a player. For me, it's about just trying to chip in with some secondary scoring and help these guys out. You never know when things are going to open up and when you're going to get your chances, so you just have to stay ready and make sure you bear down on them.
On the feeling now that they're back into the series: You have to start with one and go from there. We just try to preach about winning a period and going from there. I think it was nice to get the lead tonight as well and play on our toes instead of on our heels. It's just taking it day-by-day and you can't look too far ahead. We know we have a long ways to go still.
Sebastian Aho
On his line's bounce back performance: I thought we had a good game, but I think we also played really good defense as well. I think we made hard plays and kept them without scoring chances. Obviously I felt like I had at least two, three good looks. Would like to see those go in, but their goalie played really good and as long as we keep creating, those will go in eventually.
On playing with pride: I think we definitely talked about it. Showing our best and I think this was our best game of the series so far. I think we showed a lot of heart, battled really hard. Freddie was unreal, but the guys in front of him were selling out and just on the small little details, we were dialed in. This effort we showed to them, but also for sure ourselves, that if we keep playing like that, we're going to give ourselves a chance to win any day.
On the potential momentum swing from overturned goal: Yeah, like I said before, it felt like every guy was dialed in. I do think the lead helped there. You don't need that goal necessarily as long as you keep them off the board. But yeah, I felt like the bench was really good today. Everyone was maybe a little louder or guys were... you could sense on the bench that we were right there. Playing a hard game and obviously it showed on the ice.
On the penalty kill: You definitely gain some momentum off the kill and obviously we had some big ones in big moments of the game. Freddie was unreal. I felt like he saw everything and every puck. Somehow they all looked like easy saves, but it definitely wasn't. The kill was really good today and was probably one of the reasons we won.
Frederik Andersen
On the team playing to their identity: Of course, I think we haven't seen a lot of that this series so far. Obviously we had to leave it all out there and put our best game at them. We got rewarded tonight. It was fun.
On getting the call again: Of course, you want to be out there with the guys. Love playing with this team so happy that we're getting another shot in two days.
On the team's comfortability with playing in this series: I think we were closer to our game. I think we're a pretty good team when we do play our game. We need more of that, but this was a good step.
On his thoughts and emotions when he was pulled from Game 2 and benched for Game 3: I don't really want to talk about my feelings. It's not about that, it's about the team and trying to put the best lineup on the ice that we feel like is going to get the job done. I'm just ready for when I'm called upon and glad to be able to play tonight.
On Alexander Nikishin: His English is pretty good. After the game, he had a little speech. It was good. He got his first point tonight and it was cool. Super soft spoken guy. Getting acclimated over here, I think he's been doing a good job obviously with the games he's been in. I thought he's been doing a really good job. It's fun to see that.
On the penalty kill: Of course we want to limit them if you can, but obviously we feel that we do a good job when we do get them and kind of work through it. We're just responding to what happens in the game. If it's a kill then we need to get it done. We'll try out best.
On the momentum of winning a game: You get to play another day. I think at this time, in the playoffs at all, you get a win, you get to extend your season. Obviously we're up against the wall right now, so it's an extension of one game for right now and we'll try to do it again.
On how he felt tonight and if it was different than in Game's 1 and/or 2: Tough to really tell. Haven't thought too much about that. Try to do your best to prepare and do your best to make the save that's in front of you at that moment. Sometimes it happens, sometimes it don't. Just try to battle back and respond to the last time I was in the net and just try to be as good as I can.
On playing with pride: We're a proud team, of course. I'm not going to dive in too much on what we've talked about, but I think we knew we haven't really played our best hockey for that much of these first three games, and that was really our focus. To try and put our best game at them and see how well that would go. Obviously they're a good team too, so that's kind of what it takes at this time of year. That was what the goal was today.
On not having to hear about the ECF drought anymore: I don't really care about that stuff. I mean you'd obviously rather win, but I don't think a lot of players here were here when it started. I mean, Jordo was on the other team that started it all. Shows you how big of a narrative that is. It's something we don't really care about. We care about tonight and care about trying to win the game in front of us.
Jordan Staal
On Logan Stankoven: He's got a lot of fight in his game. He doesn't quit on any puck and he's tenacious. He's a Hurricane through and through. He got us going tonight, but even last game, he was out best player and throughout this whole series, he's been our best player. Hopefully we won't continue to rely on him, but hopefully he keeps finding a way and we get some other guys building off of that too.
On getting back to playing more direct hockey: It was definitely more of our game. I don't know exactly what it was beyond us just doing it. I don't know. I think the boys truly bought in to how we want to play and what we want to do. We got some good bounces and we had some big saves by Freddie early. Kept the momentum out of their hands. We kind of stuck with it and stayed patient with that game. They do a great job of that too and tonight we did it better.
On the penalty kill: I think every team feeds off of their PK after a big kill. The PK was obviously great tonight. I think it's going to have to be super important if we're going to want to keep coming back in this series and keep moving forward. But obviously our power play has to be sharper and our PK has to be on it. We have to play a direct game.
On playing with pride: There's a lot of character in this room and a lot of guys that didn't want to go home. We know we have a huge hill to climb here and a great team on the other side that is going to come back with a better effort. We know that. It's a great challenge and we're going to take it one day, one shift at a time.
Jaccob Slavin
On the game: We played well, we played hard. Freddie was a brick wall back there and we weren't turning pucks over. That's been our downfall in the first three games and tonight we weren't doing that. We managed the puck well and just played a good game.
On the team's defensive effort: I think the first three games, when we turned the puck over like we did, that's when they get their sniff. So managing the puck is huge for us and we did that well tonight.
On if the team was more comfortable playing a tight game than they had been earlier in the series: 1000%. It was 1-0 up until the end there and so you can't get any tighter than that. Everyone bared down and the penalty kill was huge tonight. Everyone did their job. We got one, so that's one step, but we have a long road ahead of us. We have to just keeping playing that way. One game at a time.
On the rookies: It's a tough time of the year to come in as a rookie and play minutes like that, so it's huge. The games that they played tonight were awesome and I'd say a big congrats to Niki on his first point. That's awesome and happy for him.
On Alexander Nikishin giving a little speech after the game: A little English, a little English. We'll keep working with him on it.
On what was the gist of the speech: 'Good game... Step-by-step... good job.' That's all it was.
On no longer having to hear about the Eastern Conference Final losing streak: Wonderful, wonderful. Again, like I said, it's one game at a time. But that is nice. Guys in here worked hard tonight and that's all you can ask for.
On the team's belief: I think if you watched the way we played tonight, everyone put their heart on the line and played extremely hard. We know we have a good group in here and all the pieces, we just have to bring it every night and that's what happened tonight. We brought it and there was no lapses and everyone played hard, everyone worked hard and we were doing it together.
On Logan Stankoven: He's got a lot of heart obviously. I don't think he looks at his size as a downfall at all. He plays a hard, big game and obviously he's scoring some really big goals for us. Just continue to keep that going for him. He's a warrior out there.
On the pride factor of the game: Nobody wants to go out [getting blown out]. I think all of us in this room are professionals for a reason and we're going to give it our best shot. There was a lot of pride in the game from our team, from the season that we've had and from the work ethic we put in all year. We all take pride in that and again, we just have to keep doing that together.
On the overturned goal: Obviously it would have been huge to go up 2-0, but again, we were comfortable playing a tight game and so whether it was 1-0 or 2-0, we weren't going to change anything. We just had to hop right back at it and try to go get that second one again.
Be sure to check out the Carolina Hurricanes 2025 Stanley Cup Playoffs Hub for all postseason stories!
Stay updated with the most interesting Carolina Hurricanes stories, analysis, breaking news and more! Tap the star to add us to your favorites on Google News to never miss a story.