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The Hurricanes will look to replicate their performance from Monday night and take a 2-0 series lead against the Nashville Predators in game two Wednesday.
Sebastian Aho, Warren Foegele and Rod Brind’Amour spoke to the media following Wednesday’s morning skate, here’s a full breakdown of everything they had to say:
On Jaccob Slavin being a game-time decision: He’ll let us know after warmup how he feels. It’s his decision. If he doesn’t feel right, he’s going to let us know.
On his biggest concern going into game two: You just don’t want to have any let down. The only chance we have to win is to play the way we play. If we let down, then everything goes out the window. We have to be sharp on everything we do, it give us a chance to win. We know we have enough skill to win and talent, and that kind of thing, but it’s the way we have to play to be successful. We’ve got to make sure we bring that.
On staying patient: That’s how it is all the time, regular season, playoffs. The playoff games get a little bit tighter. But really, I think every game seems the same. We talk about the same things, and that doesn’t change. It’s magnified. So you do have to stay patient, you have to stick with your game. The other team’s trying to do the same things you’re trying to do. It’s a little tug of war. You’ve got to dig in and stay patient.
On if Alex Nedeljkovic will start again: I don’t anticipate any changes to our group.
Sebastian Aho
On how much of a concern the power play is and if he’d rather play 5 on 5: Obviously you take the power play any time you can. We don’t want to take any penalties to give them a power play. We had some looks, but obviously the past couple days, we’ve been working on it, watching videos, talking about it. It all comes to executing those passes, those shots. You’ve got one more guy out there, you’ve got to find him and put the puck in the net.
On game one: I think it was a solid team effort. I think we did it right from the start and just kept going. Nothing really changed how we want to play and stuff like that, so we just try to keep playing our own game and it worked. Obviously we have to bring it again tonight.
On the penalty kill: I think overall, special teams are a huge part of the game these days. Obviously the PK gives you some confidence if you can kill some big moments, kill some momentum from the other team and it’s obviously a big part of the game.
On staying patient: We try to just do our job, play the game the right way and our way. Part of it is being patient and not being frustrated. It was a good job in game one, but obviously game one is behind us and we have to look at tonight’s game.
On the way his line played Monday and his breakaway: I think we had a bunch of chances as a line. Obviously we’d like to score on one of those, but as long as we’re winning it doesn’t matter. That breakaway was a great save by [Juuse Saros]. He’s a quick goalie, moves side to side very quickly. He made a nice save.
Warren Foegele
On the crowd Monday: It was awesome. They were amazing. It made you think of a few years ago in the playoffs of how loud this building can get. I think for sure we fed off that loud noise and it provided some energy.
On getting under the other team’s skin: I’m just trying to play hard out there. I think for a group, we want to stay away from the whistles and just stick to playing hockey, but it’s good that we’re standing up for each other and it’s going to be a good one tonight.
On Jordan Staal: He does it all. We’ve been saying since I’ve been here three years, he just does it all. It’s great to see him score some big goals and he’s got such a big frame and he’s got good wheels for someone that size, the way he can protect the puck and make plays. It’s awesome to see him score those goals. He’s going to keep going, because he shows up for these big moments and it’s amazing to play with him.