The Carolina Hurricanes opened their 2024-25 season by announcing the full opening roster. The Carolina Hurricanes defeated the San Jose Sharks Tuesday night 3-2 thanks to some contributions from the backend. Shayne Gostisbehere, Brent Burns and Jalen Chatfield all scored for Carolina while Pyotr Kochetkov stopped 21 shots in the win. After the game, Hurricanes coach Rod Brind'Amour along with Chatfield and Burns spoke with the media. Here's what they had to say: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rod Brind'Amour On the defense contributing offensively: We need it from everyone and tonight, obviously, those guys stepped up. That play in particular [Brent Burns' goal] was the play of the game. Read the play right and we made a couple of nice plays to get him a goal in what was a huge part of the game there. On Burns' preparation: For us, he might have been our best player out there tonight. He was blocking shots, he was really, really competitive. Did a lot of little things really well that may go unnoticed a little bit just on the defending part of things. Obviously that goal was huge, but he was really good. On Andrei Svechnikov: The third period, he had a couple of almosts. Just a great power move going around the net and took it to the net and the goalie made a nice save on it, but he was impactful tonight. I thought when we needed it, he turned it on. On Jack Drury's injury status: I don't have [an update] yet, but it's not looking good if I was to say something. I'm assuming he's going to be out for a while. We don't know for sure yet, though. On the game: We found a way. It wasn't pretty but then I thought the third period was obviously our best period. Sometimes when your back is against the wall, that ends up happening. You have to give them a lot of credit. I think the talent... we don't get to see them often, but certainly that number one pick is a number pick, I'll just say that. He's a special player for that age and you can just see that he's going to be a good one. On Jesperi Kotkaniemi: He was good. He stepped up too. I thought he had a really good game. We lost Jack fairly early in the game so we were a little scrambly with the lines trying to get guys out there, but he was good. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jalen Chatfield On the blueline chipping in offensively: For sure. I thought tonight was fun for the D for that to happen. But we couldn't have done it without the full team effort. The forwards out there playing hard, forechecking and turning pucks over and us getting to our game on some of those goals. I think it's good for anybody to score. On the late push and then holding on for the final two minutes: That's the group we've got in here. I've seen it for the last few years. When we're up by a goal, we're going to dig deep, we're going to get in the trenches. Even scoring that late goal, It think that was just part of our team and our identity. That we just keep pushing for the full 60. On the team not being thrilled with their first two periods: Yeah, for sure. You don't want to be down one going into the third, but we've got a good team and we've faced that adversity. The character of our guys and just being able to bounce back the way we did. Hopefully it'll just be momentum and we'll keep pushing forward, get on track and keep winning. On if the team felt like they needed more effort heading into the third period: Yeah, you could say that, but at the end of the day, it's about us coming to play our game, our identity. We know what we have to do to win and we have the group in here to do it. It's just about being consistent. It's a long year and you're not going to be able to win them all, but as long as we can come in, execute and be dialed in and focused, there's no team that can beat us and we can compete any night. On his goal: To be honest, I've never been scoring low, but lately I've been practicing a little bit lower, so it just so happened subconsciously that I shot it low and it worked out. On Brent Burns' goal: That was huge. For him to get up in the rush like that and taking that chance to tie the game and it was actually a hard shot if you watch it. That angle of him getting that one-touch pass. It was a lot of skill by him and it's good for him to get one against his former team. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Brent Burns On blueline contributing offensively: I think we're always trying to chip in offensively. It's nicer to chip in than not chip in, I guess. On Jalen Chatfield complimenting the skill level on his goal: That's a nice guy right there, huh? On what he saw on his goal: I didn't see much. It was a great play by Fishy and Neci on the rush and I'm just glad I didn't fall or miss it. It was a great play by Fishy. On the final 6-on-5 sequence: I think 6-on-5, that was nice. Obviously we gave up one the other night on it and you never want to. I think it's always a work in progress and a lot of it is just confidence in it. It was good. On facing his old team: It's just nice to see... well there's not that many left of the guys I know, but the staff, seeing them around, I got some good laughs throughout the day. It's more good to see people. A lot of really, really close friends there. It's always good to see them. We don't get to see them very often. Good to catchup. On if the team wasn't happy with their first 40 minutes: It's a tough league. It's tough every night. Obviously it hasn't been going the way we would have liked the last little bit here. It's just believing in each other, helping each other and getting that little bit of swagger back and getting back to our game. It's tough every night to do it all over and over again, especially the way we play. Some of that is about getting that swagger back and feeling good about doing the hard and dirty things. On if this win can help reinject that swagger: I mean, I hope so. I think, as a group, we've been through a lot. We have a mature group. A lot of work. I don't think you necessarily need that to have it happen. I think it's just more about doing it and feeling good with the game and just knowing what we have to do as a group every night. It's just believing in that.
