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Despite a goal and assist apiece from Dougie Hamilton and Martin Necas, the Hurricanes fell 5-4 in the shootout to the Detroit Red Wings Saturday night.
Hamilton, Necas and Rod Brind’Amour spoke to the media following the loss, here’s a full breakdown of everything they had to say:
On the Red Wings: They work hard. They make you earn everything. That’s about it. I don’t know if it’s any particular thing they’re doing. They worked hard tonight. They got their bounces from working hard. That’s really what happened, some weird goals, beating us to the net and fighting in front of the net. They earned their two points tonight.
On the play in the defensive zone: It’s weird, right. They got three that they just kind of fired in there and got a couple weird bounces for sure. But overall, we just weren’t sharp. Especially, I didn’t like our power play, that wasn’t sharp. We didn’t do anything we talked about doing before the game. We just weren’t sharp tonight.
On Sebastian Aho scoring to steal a point: You’ve got to give the guys credit for hanging in there. We weren’t good, really, but we got one that I think should have been a goal that isn’t a goal and they don’t hang their heads. They get right back out the next couple shifts and at least get us a point and give us a chance to win the game in overtime or the shootout.
On Petr Mrazek: It was just some weird bounces. The first one, he makes the save, pushes it out to the corner and I think it goes off the guy’s shin pad. I think [Vincent Trocheck] might have tipped the other one in, and then he makes the save on the third one and [Jordan Staal] kicks it in. The last goal was a nice shot. That goes bar down on the backhand, that’s a good goal by their guys, so if you really dissect it, he made some really big saves in overtime. He looked really good on those. Sometimes you don’t get the bounces, but usually you work for them.
Dougie Hamilton
On it being better to get one point after a goal gets taken off the board: No, I think it’s better to get two.
On the Red Wings: They work hard, so sometimes we struggle with teams like that. Tonight, I didn’t think we were too bad, but they got some goals quick and we were chasing the game a little bit. But I still felt like we had some chances and felt like we should have won. So they’ve been close games against them. Every game’s kind of been a grind. We knew that and expected that, and couldn’t get it done.
On all of the Canes scoring in the same spot and if there was pre scout: I didn’t even notice. I guess that’s right. We’ll know for next game where to shoot. I think it’s just the way it goes. I don’t think anybody’s thinking before they get the puck where they’re going to shoot. I guess that’s just good on us to make good shots.
Martin Necas
On if there’s any satisfaction in at least getting a point: Not really. We always want two points. It’s better to have one than zero, but we just have to be better. It wasn’t our best game. There wasn’t really momentum. We still got it to 4-4, but we’ve got to make a difference in OT and if not in OT then in the shootout. It didn’t happen. We just got to focus on the next one.
On what makes him and Sebastian Aho work so well together: It’s tough to say. I’d say obviously you can’t really compare him to me, but I think we play kind of similar hockey. He’s a really good player and we think the game a little bit similar. That might help a little bit, but we’ll see. Playing a few minutes together and scoring a goal was good, but it would have been better if we got one more.
On what wasn’t going well: Getting more pucks to the net. I don’t know how many shots we got, but it felt like we didn’t have that much offensive zone time. We didn’t really rumble them down low like we usually do. They scored some lucky goals. Some unlucky bounces for us, but that’s what happens when you go to the net. That’s about it. It wasn’t a terrible game from us, but we all know that we can be better.
On the play in their own zone: Lately we’ve been pretty good in our own zone, just today we didn’t get pucks out. They had some shots from their D while they were in front of the net and it bounced in like three times there. You try to play good defense, but today we let them score four goals, which is not great. I guess sometimes it happens, but we have to be better.