Teuvo Teravainen: ‘I think we improved.’

When the puck drops for the Canes’ Stanley Cup Qualifier series against the Rangers, Teuvo Teravainen will need to be a key contributor as he was all season and in last year’s playoffs.

Here’s a breakdown of everything Teravainen had to say on his media Zoom call Thursday.

On the differences between this year’s team and last year’s team: It’s a little bit different team, but I think we improved. Our dmen are really good. It’s just the confidence, I think, from last year, that’s why we’re a little better.

On the playing with other Finnish players like Sami Vatanen: I was pretty excited when I first heard Sami was joining our team. I didn’t know him that well before but he’s a really good guy and good locker room guy and fun guy to be around. He’s a pretty good golfer too, so we’ve been having some good matches going on. It’s always good to have some Finns around.

On the flow on offense: It’s a lot of forecheck and backcheck. It feels like the guys are ready. It’s a lot of practice every day, so I feel like we just need some games pretty soon. We’re getting tired of practice.

On Jordan Martinook: He’s just nonstop fun every day. Maybe some days you don’t feel so good when you come to the rink, then you see Marty and he just smiles. He jokes and that kind of stuff, it’s pretty funny actually. And he speaks during the games, he’s one of the loudest guys and we’re a pretty quiet team so we need a guy like him.

On dress code: I don’t know. We haven’t decided it yet, but I heard [Brind’Amour] probably wants us to go with suits for the games. But we’ll see what they end up doing.

On watching film on the Rangers: We’ve been doing a little bit of video, maybe 30 minutes every day, so there’s been plenty. There’s just little things you’ve got to work on and know. Of course, a lot of teams play the same way, but there’s always some pace of play, penalty kill, power play. Those are little things you want to take care of.

On coming back from a country that had COVID under control: It’s kind of crazy. In Finland, everything was pretty good when I got here. And here it’s crazy bad. So I guess I just have to come to work and hope for the best. But I was thinking about it a little bit. It’s crazy, but it is what it is.