They said it: Aho, Teravainen, Skjei, Brind’Amour on win over Red Wings

The Hurricanes extended their point streak to nine games with a win over Detroit Thursday night. Teuvo Teravainen had a goal and an assist for his 300th career point, Brady Skjei scored and Sebastian Aho had two assists.

Skjei, Aho, Teravainen and Rod Brind’Amour spoke to the media after the victory, here’s a full breakdown of everything they had to say.

Rod Brind’Amour

On injured players coming back: It was big. Obviously [Teravainen] looks like he didn’t really miss a beat, so that’s a really positive sign. It’s nice for him to get a goal, just I think for his own confidence in coming back. And then Brady had been out for a little while. He probably had a really rusty period, but the whole team, which I expected. And then he got his game going. So it’s good to see.

On deciding where to put Teuvo Teravainen when he came back: I know he’s been working out and skating for a long, long time. Where are you going to put him? Play him a few minutes? No, he wants to play. I know from coming off injuries, you get ready to play then put me back to what I was doing. And that’s kind of what I felt. You monitor, you look at him. He obviously was doing it right so he could handle it. We still haven’t really upped his minutes on the penalty kill yet, we’ll probably gradually work that in so he’s not overwhelmed, but he can handle whatever we throw at him.

On Brett Pesce: He’s probably, you go around the league and you talk about players that are underrated, I would say he’s probably No. 1 on the list in my opinion. Just on his value to our group and how he plays. You watch him every night, you see it. But it gets overshadowed because of some of the other players that we have, which is great that we talk about other guys. But he really is as valuable on this team as any of the guys.

On James Reimer: He had a lot of action in the first period. That’s where he kept us in the game. We gave up three grade-As in that, which we didn’t give up the rest of the game, really. That could have been the difference in the hockey game, really. I don’t know what we gave up after that, but it was certainly nothing compared to the first. So that’s, to me, what goalies have to do. Keep you in the game, make the saves when we were kind of on our heels there and allowed us to find our way.

On Teuvo Teravainen being competitive: He’s very, very competitive. When the puck drops for game time, he’s as competitive as anybody. I think he’d much rather play than practice, but he’s very competitive.

On wanting to see him get back out there: I think he was sick of working out. He wanted to play. I think he thinks the games are easier than the practices and everything that goes into getting ready to play. He’s a gamer, and it is important for him to get in our lineup and get games under his belt.

Brady Skjei

On how he feels returning from injury: I think after the first period I started feeling good. I did not play that good in the first. I think I turned it around in the second. Obviously the goal helps, but yeah. It took a little time to settle. I think in the second and third I got back to my game and started playing a lot better.

On the timeline of going through protocol: After the hit, most of it was in my eyes. That kind of went away a couple of days later and I started to feel a lot better on that third and fourth day. Kind of back to 100%. We were just being a little cautious with the guys on the road. I was planning on joining the guys once we got back. Wasn’t anything too serious, but definitely got to be cautious with any kind of head injury like that.

On sticking with his game went the offense wasn’t coming: I think I’ve played long enough where I kind of know now that I’ll get my chances and they’ll start going in the net. It was a pretty long streak there to start the year, but I knew if I kept playing my game, playing defense first and jumping in the play when the opportunities came, I’ll be able to put a few in the back of the net. I’ve been able to do that in the last couple of games I’ve played.

On the unpredictability of concussions: Concussions are definitely a scary thing. It’s just weird because your body feels fine. Physically you’re all there, but the biggest part of your body, your brain, is the thing you’ve got to let heal. Each concussion is different. Some go by quick, some last a while. You’ve got to be patient and you’ve got to wait till you feel 100%.

On his goal: I got my head up as fast as I could and I looked to shoot and I saw him go down. I tried to move it a little bit more to the inside. I really haven’t seen it so I don’t know if it went through his legs or how it got through, but I think whenever you can change the angle when you’re shooting, you can throw goalies off and throw defenders off. That’s what I tried doing there with that goal.

Sebastian Aho

On Teuvo Teravainen stepping back in and making an impact: I’m sure it helps him a lot getting his confidence up with the points and goals, but we all know it’s a lot more than that too. He makes the right plays all over the ice and I knew he was going to be fine.

On being patient with their game: We had some chances in the first, but so did they. They had some chances and Reims kept us in the game. We didn’t get frustrated in the first and we just kept going and we took over in the second.

On the first game back from a long road trip being notoriously difficult: Yeah I guess. I’ve experienced that before coming from a long road trip. You just get home and you might take that breath and next thing you know you’re in one in the first game back home. That was for sure in our minds. We didn’t want to do that and wanted to be ready from the start.

Teuvo Teravainen

On if he was looking for a pass before his goal: Always.

On if the connection between him and Aho helps coming off a long absence: It’s good to play with him. It’s pretty easy. We don’t really talk about anything too much, we just play kind of naturally out there. It doesn’t really matter who I play with, but especially now that I haven’t played in a long time so it’s nice to have Aho with me there.

On if there’s any more layers to his game that he’s still looking to get back to: Yeah, I played a couple of shifts on the penalty kill today and pretty much all the stuff that I usually do. Just try to make simple plays and try to be battle ready. I don’t know, it’s just all the small things out there.

On if he felt better today than the first game back: Yeah, I don’t know. Maybe a little better. I think I got a couple more pucks today so that’s always good and being around the puck a little more. Otherwise I felt fine in both games.

On if he felt 300 career NHL points came fast: I don’t know. I feel like some guys do it in 100 games. It’s always nice to reach a milestone so hopefully I can get a couple more