
The Carolina Hurricanes lost to the 6-5 to the Nashville Predators in overtime Friday night at PNC Arena.
Stefan Noesen, Tony DeAngelo, Jalen Chatfield, Sebastian Aho and Martin Necas scored for the Hurricanes.
After the game, Hurricanes coach Rod Brind'Amour along with Noesen and Necas spoke with the media. Here's what they had to say:
Rod Brind'Amour
On the game: We just didn't have any jump and you could tell. We were just late on everything and keeping up with lines, not tight on anything. So that's why it looked like that. I give the guys credit for trying, but I could just tell we were a little off. Not sharp and a little fatigued.
On the fatigue showing up on the defensive end: That's the hard work part and we didn't quite keep up. You can tell by all the rush opportunities that we were giving up. That never happens. We were just soft. Give them a lot of credit. They played there game. We still had a chance to win it, but it really wasn't like we needed to do.
On Antti Raanta: It is [a mental position], for sure. You can struggle as a forward or defenseman and nobody really even knows. You guys don't even talk about it very much because you've got other guys covering for you. It's just a hard position to play. It's not on him. Like I said, we were not good tonight. We weren't terrible. We had a good situation there, but everything was just a little soft, a little late, a little too easy to play against tonight.
On Jesperi Kotkaniemi's line demotion: It's big boy hockey. We've gotta do things the right way. That's pretty simple. It's not a lack of effort, but sometimes you try to make all these plays and they just come back at you the other way. It's just understanding how the game's going and when there's a chance to make plays, make them, if there's not live to fight another day kind of thing. We had a lot of guys that I don't think were real sharp tonight.
On the power play: We only had two and a half opportunities, but it was a good thing we scored on those. We know what kind of player [Tony DeAngelo] is. It's not ideal, to get his game going, to use him just on the power play, but that's a huge part of the game.
On getting a day off at home tomorrow to reset: It's not been an ideal schedule, but everyone has tough parts of their schedule. I just think that ours hit us at the start of the season with a couple of really weird road trips and then a game tonight. Everybody has to go through it. But I hope they get to see some family, refresh and hopefully come back with a little more fight to our game.
Stefan Noesen
On if the team was just running on empty tonight: No, that's not the case. We don't make those kinds of excuses around here. We were just a little loose and that was kind of what it was tonight. We scored a lot, let up a lot and that's just not the way we play the game.
On what was missing: Just a little too loose. We made a couple of high-danger plays, it hits skates and goes the other way. Probably wasn't great reloads as forwards on our part. Kind of screwed our D a little bit with their gap and not being able to get up. You give any team that many chances like that... it's the National Hockey League.
On the power play: I thought we'd been doing okay. Haven't bene great. You don't have to score every single time. Just have to go out there and create momentum and do things the right way. We're finding our groove, getting things as well as we can. Just figuring out the groups as we go.
On if the answer is simplifying the game: Sometimes. It's just the way it goes. We have a lot of skill on our team and we pride ourselves on working hard and outworking the other team. Sometimes that skill takes over and has other plans, which is great. That's what you want, but it's just knowing time and place and playing with the lead. We had the lead pretty much the entire day after the first goal. We have to learn to play with the lead. We're at Game 30 right now and still got a lot of hockey left. Just have to build off it.
On the ups and downs: There's only one way we're going to get out of this and it's with the guys in this locker room and it's together. It's doing the little things right and doing something for your buddy. That's where we've kind of lacked for a little bit this season. Like I said, we're at Game 30 and we have a lot of high expectations and we're going to turn this ship the right way.
Martin Necas
On tightening up the game: It's tough because we're giving up so much. We're not creating that much, but it's fine. Just have to play better defense and help the goalies out a little bit.
On his goal: I was just getting on the forecheck and getting to the middle. Somehow it got into the slot.
On what's been helping the power play as of late: Tony on the first power play unit. He came back. He's good on the power play. Being confident and making some plays there. That's what a power play is about. It's good that we can help ourselves out with that, but 5v5 is still not there.
On if the team is trying to force too many high-end play: I don't think we're trying to make too many high-end plays. We're getting them... I mean maybe sometimes, but I feel like that's always been in our game. We're just not on a five-man forecheck. It's every time, there's one guy missing and then it's going the other way and they're playing in our end and we're getting tired.
