Hurricanes players and coach dissect blown leads and self-inflicted wounds. Frustration boils over as they question penalty calls and internal execution.
The Carolina Hurricanes blew another multi-goal lead, this time surrendering three straight to lose 5-3 to the Colorado Avalanche Saturday night at Lenovo Center.
Despite holding a 3-1 lead after 40, thanks to goals from Sebastian Aho, Nikolaj Ehlers and Andrei Svechnikov, the team just once again capitulated.
After the game, Hurricanes coach Rod Brind'Amour along with Ehlers and Jordan Staal spoke with the media after the game. Here's what they had to say:
Rod Brind'Amour
On the game: You take two penalties that are not impactful, not even close to our end of the rink and we know they have all the world class players out there that are just licking their chops and right now, our penalty kill is not going so good. Just a little off and that's the game.
On if the the blown multi-goal leads are in the players' psyche: For sure. You talk about it, but we just keep beating ourselves in essence. That's what's happening. Yeah, they made the plays, but we're giving them opportunities that you just can't. We keep talking about it, but the room, it has to come from there. Right now, it's not happening.
On if the team needs more offense from the rest of the lineup: Other guys have to chip in. Jarvy's out, that's a big part of it, but yeah, obviously. We need contributions from everyone. That's the only way this team wins. Right now, we're obviously not getting it done.
On the officiating: Yeah, it's terrible, but it is what it is. Those are tripping penalties. The first one you can probably let go because the play continues and it's a nonfactor. That's feel. You gotta have feel for the game. The other one, you can't trip a guy going into the boards. It was light, but... There was one on Miller that was a phantom call. Blaker gets held, then he holds a guy and gets a penalty. But that's neither here nor there. You have to kill penalties and we're not doing a good job there.
On Frederik Andersen: He was good. Good on him. He made some huge saves. We were probably fortunate to be up 3-1 going into the third based on the chances that were going on. They made good shots on the goals. That fourth one, was blown coverage. We let the guy skate right up the middle of the ice and we're standing there watching them. They make a good play, but it's just... pick them up. That's hard to explain. We do have some young guys back there in that hole and they both kind of didn't quite do it right and that's been getting us too.
Nikolaj Ehlers
On what changed for the team in the third period: Not doing what we did in the first couple of periods. They started putting that game on us and that's the game that worked for us in the first two periods. So, yeah.
On his penalty against Devon Toews: Honestly, I thought I did [make contact]. I was trying to go in and lift his stick, but from what I was told and from what the guys on the bench saw, I didn't touch him. Obviously it is frustrating. At the same time, that happened really quick and even I thought it was a penalty to begin with. It was dangerous. It sucks that in the end, there wasn't really a penalty, but we get those sometimes as well. It is what it is.
On the blown multi-goal leads: We've done it, what? Three or four times in the last six games or something like that and it's games where we've actually played really well up until the last period. Last game, it was me throwing the puck right to a guy in the slot. Today, it was maybe a few mistakes and it was in the back of our net. We have stuff we need to clean up. Luckily we have 41 games to do that.
On if there's things you can take from this game: Absolutely. I think the first two periods, yes, they're too good not to get some chances. Freddie played great tonight. So, yeah, absolutely. I think we played really well in the first two periods against a team that's as hot as they are. Those are the teams that you want to play up against. We can take some stuff, but we have some stuff that we can bring with us as well that we can clean up.
On his line with Sebastian Aho and Andrei Svechnikov: It's been two games now and so far, it's obviously worked great. I think in the D zone, there's still some things we need to clean up. Other than that, we've got some speed and we're trying to find each other. Getting some looks in the slot. So it's been great.
Jordan Staal
On the game: Played two good periods and in the third, they started to take it to us a bit and kind of stressed us out. We took a couple of penalties and they had a good power play. I don't know how many we ended up taking tonight, but you give that power play that many opportunities and they're going to make you pay. They got some momentum off of that and then a quick goal after that one. That was the third.
On the calls against them: Would have liked more power plays, always like more power plays. I thought that there were a couple of cheesy ones, I guess the Millsy one was the only one that was a little cheesy, but I think we have to be smarter too. Like I said, it's one of the best teams in the league if not the best team and one of the better power plays. You have to stay out of the box and hunker down and just finish the game. I mean, we're just giving them freebies and giving them easy ones. Obviously the PK could have come up big for us and didn't. We're finding ways to lose games.
On if it was tough not being able to get a win for Frederik Andersen given the way he played: It's a full group obviously and Freddie kept us in it with some big saves early and played a good game. I thought he was solid and gave us a good chance to win the game. I thought we still could have played better in front of him and given him some mojo back.
On if this game was at least pointed better in the right direction: Yeah, I mean there were some positives if you want to look at it that way. But I mean, you want results too, especially given the funk we're in. We've gotta pull a 60 minute game in and just do it all the way through. You can give them credit. Obviously the best team, but we're a good team too and we have to get some confidence back in our game and the way we do things and trust in our game. We have to trust it. Just there's no continuing what we're doing. It's just like the third, recently, seems to be sitting back or just not doing what we did in the first two periods. It's frustrating. It's on me and the leadership group here. We have to get better. We said our piece after the game and tomorrow we better be more like our game and for 60 minutes.
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