The Carolina Hurricanes lost Game 5, 2-1, to end their season at the hands of the Boston Bruins.
The Canes’ sole goal came from a Haydn Fleury snipe, but two power play goals by the B’s lifted them past Carolina.
Captain Jordan Staal and defenseman Jaccob Slavin spoke to the media over Zoom following the loss.
Jordan Staal
On what to take away from playing five, close games: It was a tight series. I thought there was maybe one game where we weren’t at our best, but it’s always gonna be tight against a good team like that. They keep it tight and I think we got beat in a few little areas. In special teams obviously, that and a few other areas killed us. They found ways to win games.
On the biggest missing piece: I’m not sure it was one piece. I think there were a lot of little things we could have done better. I thought we got away from our game a few times. Give them credit, they did a good job of not letting us get to our game, but special teams can always be better. My line in general, I don’t think we created enough offense. We needed to put the puck into the net for some depth scoring. There were a lot of things that added up to that series loss.
On measuring up to a perennial Stanley Cup contender: It’s a good team and they got players that know how to win games. As a group I think we’re gonna learn from this. We’ve got some really good young players that want it and are gonna grow and get even better. That’s the exciting thing about the Carolina Hurricanes. The future is bright. There’s a lot of guys that bring it every night and that’s what you want to see when you’ve got the talent to boot. It makes for some fun hockey.
On what the team needs to do to clear the bar: If you look at that series, I thought we were pretty close. You hear it from everyone, it’s those little things. All those little things got to add up. Special teams has got to be better, depth scoring has got to be better. Goaltending has got to be better and the D-corp has got to be moving the puck. All those little things put you over that edge and give you that little extra inch. They did it better and more consistently through that series than us. We had some spurts that looked like the team we wanted to be and a team that could win the series at times, but over the five games, they were more consistent at that.
Jaccob Slavin
On what the team will take away from this season: Just the group of guys that we have here. We got a tight-knit group and this was a first-time experience for everyone. I think you’ll just remember it all as a whole. I don’t think it will ever happen again where you take a four month pause and then come back into playoff hockey. There’s definitely good things to take from this season.
On the difference maker in special teams: If you look at their power play, it’s one of the best in the league. They’ve got a lot of set plays they run and they’re good at those plays. I think for the most part, as a kill, we did a pretty good job in this series. I think both of their goals tonight were fluky power play goals, but sometimes that’s how a power play gets it done. But on the penalty kill side of things, I think theirs is very solid. We had a hard time getting it in the zone and that’s the most important thing. To get it in the zone and set up. Once we did, I thought we had some good chances, but they had a solid kill.