They said it: Bean, Martinook, Brind’Amour post morning skate

The Hurricanes will look to bounce back from two losses to the Detroit Red Wings tonight as they host the Nashville Predators at PNC Arena.

Jake Bean, Jordan Martinook and Rod Brind’Amour spoke to the media following the team’s morning skate, here’s a full breakdown of everything they had to say:

Rod Brind’Amour

On Nashville: They’re on the same page now. You can see it. They’re playing really hard, competitive every shift. They’ve upped the ante there and they’re having the results.

On Teuvo Teravainen: That’s a top-end forward that plays a 200-foot game. It really balances lines out when he’s in there to have a three-line threat team. He covers up for a lot of guys defensively, and then obviously when the other team makes those little mistakes, he’s got the skill set that he can capitalize. So we’re missing him. He’s a huge loss, obviously. Hopefully we can get him back before too long.

On Jani Hakanpaa’s debut: It’s a tough spot to be in. We’re certainly not going to judge him by how things go here and we’ll give him a few games to get settled. But there’s a tendency anytime a new guy shows up for that guy to overdo it. And that’s what we don’t want to do, but it’s easier said than done.

On the final stretch: I haven’t talked about it much because we try to stay in the moment, but I think we might have one of the most games left of any team, so there’s a lot on the table here. There’s no real breaks here. So it’s going to be physically grinding but it’s going to be mentally grinding to stay with it every night. We’re going to have to do that to have success, but I don’t think the message can be ‘look at all that.’ It’s got to be ‘let’s focus on today.’

On Brock McGinn: He’s closer, every day he gets closer, but he’s still a ways away, unfortunately. Hopefully at some point this month we’ll get him back.

Jordan Martinook

On the trade deadline: I think it weighs on people, stresses people out. So it’s nice that we can put that behind us. Obviously it sucks to lose a friend in [Haydn Fleury] and a good teammate, but bringing in [Jani Hakanpaa], we’re excited to see what he can do. He’s big and strong and I’m excited to see him in a game.

On unbreakable records in hockey: The first one Gretzky’s 50 in 39. That won’t get touched, in my opinion. Pretty much any one of Gretzky’s records is, I don’t think, getting touched. So you can just say Wayne Gretzky for all of them. Maybe [Alex Ovechkin] can get him in the goals, but that’s a big feat.

On the Canes needing to get back to their standard: We definitely got away from it the last two games. It’s no secret what makes us successful. I feel like every team we’re playing is trying to play the same way right now, and that’s how we want to play, so we definitely need to get back to it. It starts with the work ethic from everybody and obviously the skill takes over from there. But we definitely need to get back to the way we’re playing. We’re coming down the stretch here, and you want to be playing good going into the playoffs, not going the other way. So we definitely need to turn it around here.

On Teuvo Tervainen: He’s one of our best players, so obviously you miss him a ton. His ability to control the play, the plays he makes and obviously, he’s gotten a little more recognition for it in the last couple years, but his defensive game. It’s just all around. He’s one of our best players, and we miss him a ton.

Jake Bean

On playing with Jani Hakanpaa: Jani’s a great player. Obviously you can see how big he is and how well he skates and moves. He’s great on defense and he’s not afraid to talk. So it’s easy to work with him right away. There’s been no hitches so far. Obviously we haven’t played a game yet, but in practice it’s been easy and he’s also the nicest guy in the world, so it makes things a lot easier.

On Haydn Fleury: It’s always tough when someone gets traded midseason. It’s a business and that’s kind of just the way it is. I did get to see him before he left. It was good to see him and send him off. We have mutual friends in Anaheim so I know he’ll be well taken care of, and I’m fortunate we live in Calgary in the summer, so I’ll see him hopefully in a while but I’ll see him in the summer still, so it’ll be good.

On playing your off side as a defenseman: I think in a game you never know what you’re going to get. It seems like there’s some times where you can stuck if you’re a righty on the left side or a lefty on the right side. It’s not usually normal plays, it’s just these little ones that pucks don’t bounce the way you want them to and all of the sudden you’re trying to get it out but you’re on your backhand and you’ve got to get it off the glass, whereas usually you’d be on your forehand and it’d be an easier play. So it’s just those little things, the broken plays. You can kind of just react a little bit easier.