They said it: Brind’Amour, Skjei, Svechnikov on overtime loss

The Hurricanes did not have their A-game Monday night, but, thanks to 32 saves from Petr Mrazek and goals from Andrei Svechnikov and Brady Skjei, they picked up a point in a 3-2 overtime loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning.

Skjei, Svechnikov and Rod Brind’Amour spoke to the media following the defeat, here’s a full breakdown of everything they had to say:

Rod Brind’Amour

On Andrei Svechnikov: I think he’s played fine all year. I know everyone judges, and he does too, I’m sure, on goals and what not, but he’s always making plays out there. He had a great game tonight, really. He got a goal and he set up [Jordan Staal] at the end there for a potential winner in overtime. He’s been doing this all year, really. I hope for his sake, he can just relax and play a little bit and doesn’t get asked all the questions about getting goals, because you can’t really control all that. Sometimes they go in, sometimes they don’t. But it’s the overall play we’re looking for.

On the message after the game: It wasn’t good enough. We got lucky to get a point out of that. Our goalie bailed us out all game in my opinion. We had spurts where we were playing it right, but it wasn’t good enough. The fact that we got a point out of it, was probably pretty good, and had a chance to win. We had some good chances in overtime. So [Mrazek] put us in a spot to potentially win that. When you’re playing the best team in hockey, you can’t play the way we did. We can’t play two periods like that and expect to get anything out of it, so it’s a good point for us.

On Mrazek getting hit on his thumb and on if he mentioned anything about it after the game: I haven’t heard anything about injuries at all. It’s too early. I’m meeting in about 10 minutes with the trainer, and we usually go over that. Obviously he finished the game and never mentioned it. Hopefully it’s not an issue.

On Alex Killorn’s hit on Martin Necas: I honestly don’t like to see that, a good player go down, or any player go down and get hurt. That’s the one thing. I can’t comment on it because I haven’t looked at it. Obviously they didn’t call any penalties on it, so they must have thought it was fine.

On Monday’s playoff-like atmosphere and on if there are concerns about pacing that emotion: It’s funny. I don’t think we had the emotion at all. They might have treated it like a playoff game, but I don’t think we did. We didn’t play our game. It’s all about the little plays that we didn’t do tonight. We spent way too much time in our own end because of it. We need to up the ante a little bit if we want to get to a playoff level type game.

Brady Skjei

On the intensity of the game and on the Canes not necessarily being on their best game: I think we can learn from this. I don’t think we played our full 60 game. I think that showed. We had good spurts of playing our style, but overall it wasn’t our best. Petr [Mrazek] played a heck of a game. We’re gonna come back tomorrow and learn a few things on video and get right back at it.

On Mrazek’s performance: He was on top of his game. No doubt about that. There were many shifts, I think me and [Brett Pesce] were out there for a long one in the second and Petr held strong. He played a heck of a game. The reason we got that point tonight was definitely because of him. He kept us in the game and did a great job.

On Jake Gardiner fighting and standing up for Martin Necas: That got our bench going, for sure. [Gardiner] isn’t known as a fighter, obviously, but you protect your teammates when you have to. [Necas] got hit pretty hard there, and it was a great job from [Gardiner] of stepping up and fighting there.

On Alex Killorn’s hit on Necas: I haven’t seen it yet. I’ll have to watch it. Obviously it was a pretty hard hit if Jake did that. I can’t comment on it right now. I didn’t see it well enough.

Andrei Svechnikov

On if he feels like he’s back to where he needs to be as a goal scorer: Yeah, for sure. Like I said after my first goal, it’s just one goal. But now it’s a couple of them. Obviously I’ve got my confidence. I feel comfortable with everything. Obviously I’ve got my confidence back, so I’ve got to keep that in form.

On if it felt like a playoff game: Yeah, we kind of didn’t really play our game. I still think the playoffs are going to be a little more fast and physical. But yeah, it’s getting closer. But we didn’t play our game. We’ve got to change that.

On the resiliency of the team to get a point: It wasn’t our best game. That’s for sure. We’ve got a great team here. We’ve got lots of good guys. We’ve just got to keep going and just try to find our best game before playoffs. We’re in every game right now, so it’s going to be huge for us.

On rivalries sparking from playing the same teams so many times: For sure. They won the Stanley Cup last year, so they’re a really good team. But like I said, we didn’t play our best game. We’ve got to show them our best game tomorrow. We’ve got to be better, I know that.