They Said It: Brind’Amour, Smith, Svechnikov discuss loss to Kraken

For the first time this season the Carolina Hurricanes are on a losing streak.

The Canes fell 2-1 Wednesday night in their first-ever game against the Seattle Kraken, as a late third-period winner from Marcus Johansson closed the door on Carolina’s second loss this week.

Defenseman Brendan Smith had the Canes’ lone goal in the first period, blasting home a great pass from Tony DeAngelo to give Carolina a 1-0 lead with his second score of the season. That was all the Canes would get offensively, though, as the Kraken and goaltender Philipp Grubauer closed the door.

Following the loss, Canes’ head coach Rod Brind’Amour, Smith and Andrei Svechnikov spoke with members of the media. Here is what they had to say:

Rod Brind’Amour

On his team’s effort in the loss: It was good. I don’t know what else you can do, we just didn’t score. We did everything we should do, we just didn’t capitalize. We didn’t give up a lot. We just didn’t find a way to get another goal.

On the feeling of losing back-to-back games in frustrating fashion: Well, it’s frustrating because we’re not scoring. Early in the year, we were getting a lot of bounces going our way and now they’re not. We just have to keep doing it. We play a game like that every game, we’re going to have good results. It’s hard. Those guys are pressing and they want to score. That’s part of it, but you can’t get frustrated. It’s easy to say that, but it’s human nature that you will. We’re fighting that a little bit right now.

On the line-juggling: It was a few things, just wanted to do something a little different. Then Svech was out the last seven or eight minutes and that prompted a whole bunch of changes, too. We were just trying to get something going there. We were creating enough to win tonight. We certainly had enough chances.

On Svechnikov’s fight late in the game: It’s not the good play because it takes him out of the game. I don’t know how he got the extra two. I don’t know how Slavin got a penalty on the one that leads to a goal, too. Things are stacking against us. They were going for us good early in the year and now we’re going through one of those that you just have to fight through.

On if he feels like teams are circling the Hurricanes: We get everybody’s best game. We haven’t played one game this year where the other team was bad. Not one game. We’re getting their best. That’s a change from years gone by, I can tell you that. We know that. That’s part of it.

On the quick turnaround ahead: Nah, it’s not ideal, obviously. And then we come home and have another afternoon game and then go back on the road. Everyone has tough schedules, but this one is a little crazy. It is what it is. We’ve got to bounce back.

Brendan Smith

On DeAngelo’s pass to assist his goal: That’s elite. That’s very high level. I’ve watched him make that play a lot. A lot of times I would kind of be backing out, but I know that he’s good at walking the line. He made an unbelievable play. At that point I looked up and saw Jordan [Staal] in front, and you can’t get a bigger guy in front. I had a pretty good screen, and I just tried to get good wood on it. It went in.

On how he felt: I think the coaches are getting a little bit more confidence in my game. I’m playing a little bit more minutes. I think that’s just with time learning the system and getting in more games. When they feel comfortable with me, I’m going to feel comfortable as well. Hopefully I can keep getting better and keep trying to help this team. We’re moving in the right direction. I liked our game. There’s a lot of parity in this league, and a lot of times it comes down to special teams. They got theirs, and we didn’t get ours.

On if this was a case of one team taking advantage of the opportunities and the other not: I don’t know. I mean, it was a 2-1 game. I wouldn’t say either team took a whole lot of their opportunities. I thought both goalies played great. You’ve got to tip your cap to their goalie. I thought he made some big saves, timely saves. In a 2-1 game, 1-0 game, these tight games, one little error can change the whole thing. I liked our game. To be honest, I wasn’t very happy with the call on [Jaccob Slavin]. He doesn’t get many penalties to begin with, and then I think if we break that down that’s probably not a penalty. That changed the outcome. That’s the game of hockey. I guess the hockey gods weren’t in our favor. These are cliches that we always say. We’re frustrated. I’m frustrated. But I think we can take solace in how we played and competed.

On if it’s starting to feel like teams are circling the Canes on the schedule: That’s what’s going to happen. All good teams forever, since I was a little kid, that’s always been what happens. When I was playing with them, it was the Red Wings are coming into town. You had to have your best game or they were going to shell you. We see that now. Teams are blocking shots. These last two games, teams are selling out to make those blocks and they’re competing. We’re going to get team’s best. We want it that way. We want to be prepared all year so that when it comes time for the playoffs, we’re going to be prepared for that. That’s good, that we see the best competition from each team. Like I said earlier, there’s so much parity in the league, and if you’re getting their best on a nightly basis, we’re going to get better. You’re right. I agree with you. I feel like teams are playing well. You know what? That’s great. That’s exciting. We’ll take it.

Andrei Svechnikov

On the team’s game as a whole: I thought we played well. The effort was there. It was one of those games where we’re getting so many shots and we can’t score. Their goalie was unbelievable today.

On what happened in his late fight and on if he feels he may have been better suited to be on the ice rather than in the penalty box down the stretch: It’s just one of those moments. It happened so fast. I got that hit, and he kind of jumped at me. I thought he wanted it, and we just had a go. It just happened too fast. I’m not a fighter. I know I have to be on the ice to help my team win games. I probably shouldn’t do that.